


Snowed In!

by Signel_chan



Series: Snowed In-verse [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Family, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-05 03:30:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 78,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5359469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Signel_chan/pseuds/Signel_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A winter snowstorm turns an afternoon of horse rescuing into an indeterminate amount of time being stranded at a summer camp, which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't days before Christmas and if one of the two people now stuck against their will didn't have big plans for the holiday. Plans that others may be trying to toss to the wayside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. From Ferox With Love, Part One

When the radio had a working signal, which was a rare occasion as the truck was in the middle of some blustery mountain pass, the voice coming across the air waves had a concerned message for anyone listening: to stay inside and not venture out unless absolutely necessary, because a storm for the history books was blowing into town overnight. From where she sat in the passenger’s seat of that truck, Sully gave a huffy sigh whenever she heard the warning, regretting ever making the decision to go out in the first place. Her eyes tracked up to the rear-view mirror, which, when not obscured by the almost blinding snow, allowed her to see the horse trailer they were towing, and that made her regret subside, if only slightly. How could she regret agreeing to help someone’s horse out?

“It ain’t too much further, is it?” the driver of the truck asked, speaking over the warning that was faintly playing through the speakers. “Road’s kinda slick through here, and if it’s gonna be much more drivin’, we’re gonna have to pull over and chain up or somethin’.”

“At this rate, I don’t even think pulling over’s necessary.” Sighing again, Sully turned her attention from trying to see the trailer to looking at the sheer concentration in the driver’s face as he attempted to watch the road before them. “It shouldn’t be too much further up the road though, Vaike. The snow’s making it a hell of a lot harder to tell, though.”

He chuckled, slowing the truck down as much as he could to take on one of the winding mountain curves. “Shoulda thought about it a bit more ‘fore I agreed to bringin’ ya up here. Or, at least, ya coulda warned ol’ Vaike that we’d be drivin’ right into the storm to do this.” As he started to take the turn, one of the front tires hit a patch of ice obscured by the snow, sending them swerving a bit, and once their direction was corrected and they were presumably back on the road, he stopped the vehicle completely and opened his door, letting the whipping wind start blowing snow into the warm cab of the truck. “Yeah, ain’t lettin’ that happen again. Don’t haveta help me if ya don’t wanna, but I’m puttin’ somethin’ on these wheels so we don’t go skiddin’ off a cliff.”

Without another word, he climbed out his door and slammed it shut, sending some of the snow that had collected on top of the truck cascading off the side. She gave a small laugh at the sight, especially when she saw that he had caused himself to get covered with the fine powder in the process. “What a dumbass,” she said, undoing her seatbelt and turning the volume on the radio up a bit more. The voice of the weatherman was coming in with static, but she could still make out the important points of his message—and just hearing his talk of a historic snowstorm hitting the vast majority of Ylisse made her wish she was back at her house, doing something in the safety of its warm walls. “Then again, I guess I’m a dumbass too, even thinking that coming out in this was a good idea.”

She leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes as she did. Between the occasional whistle of the wind and the garbled message of the radio, she didn’t need much more as a soundtrack for her thoughts, which were focused solely on what had happened to end up with her and one of her coworkers in the mountains that straddled the border between Ylisse and Ferox at the same time a Feroxi snowstorm was moving south. It had all started that morning, when she had woken up to a phone call from the owners of a small horse camp in the mountains, a place that she knew very well due to the summers she had spent there. There were two ways to get to the camp, one coming from Ylisse and one from Ferox, and when the first big snowstorm came through the couple who owned the camp typically packed up their horses and went to stay with family somewhere in Ferox. It was a two-trip ordeal, with how small their horse trailer was and with how many horses they owned.

But in between the two trips, an avalanche had occurred somewhere along the road they had taken to get into town, leaving them unable to return to the camp to get their last horse. Knowing that someone in Ylisse would be willing and caring enough to make the journey for the rescue mission, they had called Sully with the sole purpose of asking her to go get their horse for them and to keep him safe until there was a way to reunite him with his owners. She accepted the job without a second thought; after all, she _had_ spent a lot of time at the camp, so helping them out was the least of what she felt she could do for them. The issue with that decision was that, while she had a horse trailer easily handy, she didn’t have a vehicle that could tow it.

That was when she had turned to one of her co-workers and partners in fighting crime on the Ylisse police force, because she simply couldn’t do this task herself. Vaike honestly hadn’t questioned a thing about the rescue mission until they were nearly two hours into the drive, and she was completely thankful for that due to the dangerous nature of what they were getting into. Once the warning on the radio started playing repeatedly, the questions began being asked, always starting with one that she hated hearing: “Are you sure we’re gonna be makin’ it back tonight?” It wasn’t so much that she hated the context of the question (she was fairly certain it was because he was supposed to be working overnight, but it could have also been related back to his romance life), but rather that she hated not having a solid answer to give him. It was always a shrug and a perhaps, because the likelihood of them making it back relied solely on them making it there in the first place.

A banging on the window next to her startled her slightly, her eyes shooting open to see what was going on. She shouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest to see Vaike standing there knocking to get her attention, nor should she have been surprised when he opened her door on her, the cold creeping in without warning. “Hey, bit of a problem,” he said, holding two gloved fingers up just far enough apart that she could assume there was space between them. “Can’t make drivin’ safer if the road’s almost purely ice.”

“And how do you know it’s ice?” she asked, not expecting him to turn around and show her his snow-covered back, presumably from him falling out on the slick road. “Oh. Well, damn. Guess you would know.”

“Snow’s comin’ down a lot harder than I’ve ever seen it, too. Not thinkin’ this was a good idea at all, so maybe we could kinda turn back and get home safe ‘fore the storm hits home.” Without closing the door, Vaike ducked down and started brushing caked-on snow and ice off from around the front tire of the truck. “Don’t need Chrom killin’ us for riskin’ our lives out in this on a horse.”

“Chrom understands that animal lives matter as much as ours do. I think he’d be angrier if we came all the way the hell out here just to turn around with nothing!” Shivering slightly and reaching for her jacket to cover up with, Sully couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Besides, you’re not worried about Chrom killing you because of the horse. You’re worried he’s going to kill you for scaring his sister.”

Vaike stood back up, a large icicle in his hand. “Please, as if that’s what’s got the Vaike worried about gettin’ home safe. It’s all about how Chrom’s gonna handle it if I don’t show up to work tonight to keep the town safe. No one else on the squad’s got a truck that can handle the ice ‘n snow.”

“Well if your truck can handle ice and snow like you claim it can, we can easily get up to the camp, get the horse, and get home in one piece, so that we don’t worry Chrom, or,” she gave a small smirk, “your precious girlfriend either.” For that add-on, he mimed stabbing her with the icicle he was still holding, before tossing it behind him and walking around the side of the truck for a moment. During that time, Sully couldn’t help but let her smirk grow bigger, and a laugh escaped her. “Walking away after that damn great comment just proves you’re more worried about her than your job, idiot.”

The wind made his response hard to hear, but she was sure that it initially began as a bunch of yelling about how he was in fact worried about work and nothing else. By the time he came back within view, holding a tangled mess of tire chains in his arms, he was mid-sentence and visibly frustrated at something, although it wasn’t at what he originally had been yelling about. “—and it looks like someone snagged half my chains out from the back of the truck and that means the trailer’s gonna be slippin’ and slidin’ across the road and that ain’t the best thing for it to be doin’ when there’s a horse in it.”

“What do you mean, half your chains are gone? Don’t you have them all in your hands?” Her smirk fading fast, especially after he looked at her and shook his head, Sully quickly put her jacket on and jumped out of the truck, the snow beneath her feet flying up as she landed on it. “You work on putting those on. I’ll look in the back for the others. We aren’t getting this far without going home with the damn horse.”

“Got it. But I swear to ya, they ain’t in there.” Dropping the chains beside him, Vaike crouched down once more and sighed. “I know who’s got ‘em if they really ain’t there. Knew I shoulda remembered givin’ the chains out to a friend. Er, a boss? I guess?”

In the middle of a step towards the back of the truck, Sully froze and turned her head back to side-eye Vaike. “You mean you gave the other chains to Chrom?”

“He was comin’ up to Ferox today too, y’know. Somethin’ about pickin’ up a house guest for the holidays. I told him that chains don’t really work with l’il cars like his, but he didn’t listen to ol’ Vaike because he’s the boss and I ain’t.” He looked up and saw that Sully was half-glaring at him. “What? Did I say somethin’ wrong?”

“You knew the entire time that they weren’t here. I’m not even bothering with looking.” Having to hold onto the side of the truck to keep herself from falling on the slick ground, Sully turned back around and walked over to the still-open door of the truck, climbing back in and stomping her feet on the floor to get off all the snow that had collected in the treads of her boots. “Why did you agree to driving up here in the middle of a snowstorm if you knew you didn’t have all the damn supplies you needed?”

“Because when someone says snowstorm, I don’t think of somethin’ like this! The worst ‘snowstorm’ the Vaike’s ever been in wasn’t anything like this! This ain’t just a storm, not this time.” He tilted his head back to look up at the dreary gray sky, the snow making visibility next to nothing. “I don’t think we should keep goin’.”

“It’s just a damn bit of snow. If we can deal with murderers and criminals at home, we can handle getting up to a horse camp in the snow. Just keep going slow and eventually we’ll get there.” He gave a small nod and got to work on weather-readying the tires that he could, a process that didn’t take very long—to the point that Sully was sure they had spent more time sitting and talking than it had taken for him to declare the chains on the tires properly. By the time he was back in the truck’s cab, the doors were shut, and they were on their way once more, it had been a good thirty minutes since they had stopped, and the snow had done nothing but pile up more in the meantime.

Driving was simultaneously easier and more difficult. The truck itself was gripping to the road, but the trailer it was towing was sliding across the road even worse than before, thankfully never once going off the road or causing the entire rig to jackknife. That didn’t mean that there weren’t a handful of stressful moments when the trailer would start skidding across the road and Vaike, trying not to let anything bad happen, would slam on the brakes and make everything temporarily worse until both truck and trailer were perfectly still. It was maybe another mile up the road, plus a few hundred yards down another road, to the horse camp, and that journey took almost as long as getting to the mountains in the first place had taken.

The camp itself was situated in a little clearing just off the main road through the mountains. It was a miracle that Sully had been able to notice the turnoff to get there with the snow blowing as hard as it was, but if she hadn’t seen it when she did, they would have known that they missed it within moments, as right past the turnoff was where the avalanche had happened that was the entire reason they had been told to come up to the camp in the first place. Once in the clearing, finding the stables and, by extension, the horse they were there to rescue was the easy part. Or, at least, it was in theory, but with the wind blowing the snow to the point of obscuring nearly everything into vague shapes, it was a much more difficult challenge.

Parking the truck on what he hoped wasn’t grass or other plant life, Vaike looked to Sully for what they were supposed to do next. “Well, I got us here. Now where’s that horse gonna be at, so we can get it and go ‘fore things get much worse.”

“I’ll get the horse, thanks. You get the trailer open and ready, and I’ll bring the horse to you. Last thing we need is you making this all take longer because you don’t know how the hell to handle yourself around the horse.” Sully threw her door open and once again jumped out of the truck, but unlike the previous time she had done that, the ground was not as inviting to her feet, and she quickly lost her balance, falling down into a snowdrift that was easily half her height.

Having watched the entire thing, Vaike laughed and carefully got himself out of the truck, walking around to close her door and offer her a hand up. “Now we’ve both fallen out in this nonsense, yeah? Get back to your feet and get on gettin’ that horse so we can get on outta here fast!”

She ignored his hand and got back up on her own, brushing the snow off of her the best she could, her hands stinging in the cold. “Should have brought myself some gloves for this,” she muttered, before walking off towards the buildings she could faintly make out before her. Every step she took was in snow that was piled up to her knees, which made it that much harder to make real progress in any timely manner. Once she could feel the solid dirt of the paths around camp beneath her feet, though, she knew she was headed in the right direction, and once the snow stopped being as much of a nuisance, as it had been being blown away from the buildings, she was able to get to the stables much faster.

Before she entered the long building that she knew the horse was in, she turned back to see what Vaike was doing; to her shock, she couldn’t see the truck or her companion at all, only the desolate white wall that was the snow falling. “He better not have left me here as soon as I walked off. What, is he so petty that he’d leave a friend stranded because she made some true jokes about him and his girlfriend? He better not be that much of a damn baby.” Her hands and cheeks turning a bitter red from the cold and wind, she focused once more on the stable’s door, opening it with little trouble and stepping inside. Although the owners of the camp weren’t around, they had left the heating on inside for their sole remaining horse, who was standing in its stall just waiting to be rescued.

When the horse saw her approach, it began to huff and make noises that showed it wasn’t thrilled with having someone that wasn’t its owner approaching it, but Sully raised a hand and reached for its side, to pet it and show that she was friendly. It didn’t take well to her frozen touch, but after a moment of her softly whispering to it alongside the petting, it calmed down and became willing to cooperate with her. As fast as she could, with no real desire to go back into the cold but no choice but to do it, she dressed the horse in a warm blanket and grabbed all of its equipment, finally putting its bridle on it and taking hold of its reins. “Okay, let’s do this. Hopefully, if he’s still here and isn’t being an ass for no reason, Vaike should have the trailer set up for you, you big horse. It’s not going to be a fun ride home, but it’ll be better than you being alone up here.” The horse whinnied, but was willing to follow Sully out of the stable and into the snow.

About halfway back to where she had remembered the truck being, she noticed that her footprints from going to the stable had already filled up fairly well with fresh snow, and everything around them had only gotten more covered and treacherous. Three-fourths of the way there, and she still couldn’t make out the truck, further cementing her worry that she had been abandoned, although it was completely possible that the storm (which had done nothing but intensify in the maybe five minutes she’d been inside) was just obscuring her view even more.

“Hey, I see ya!” Hearing Vaike’s voice was reassuring because it meant that he was still around, but she wasn’t able to tell where it was coming from, until she heard the horse snort, quickly followed by a low groan. “Oof, next time, warn a guy that horses don’t like bein’ touched from behind, okay? Thing just kicked the hell outta me.”

“Why are you behind us?” Sully asked, looking back to see Vaike standing there, doubled over from the horse kicking him in the stomach. “We didn’t pass the truck, did we?”

“Snow’s kinda crazy. Makin’ us all make bad choices. You walked a giant animal right past the truck, ol’ Vaike decided to follow and got himself kicked by the animal…it’s all ‘cause of the snow.” He brought himself back upright and came to be standing beside her, giving a thumbs-up when he got there. “But yeah, truck’s back a little bit. We should get goin’ now before things get any worse than they already are.”

She nodded, preparing herself to lead the horse in the correct direction, but a loud, deafening rumbling stopped her in her tracks. “Uh, don’t mean to get negative, but that didn’t sound like it was a good thing,” she said, before turning her attention to the horse, which was beginning to act upset. “Shush, it’s all okay, we’re going to get you somewhere safe…”

“You get awfully nice to horses when you’re around ‘em. Maybe you should learn that sort ‘a kindness towards people too.” Putting a hand above his eyes to block the snow from blowing into them, Vaike tried to look into the distance to see what had happened, but to no avail. “Got any ideas about what to do? That sounded like somethin’ just came off a mountain.” He was met with silence, and when he looked to see what Sully was doing he found her still comforting the horse. “Okay, c’mon, we’ve gotta worry about ourselves and our safety here, not just keepin’ the animal from bein’ freaked out.”

“Then you use what little brains you have and think of something!” She hadn’t meant to yell, and she certainly hadn’t meant to sound rude to the person who had helped her out so much already that day, but it had happened. Vaike dropped his hand, mumbled something about how he was just trying to get her opinion too, and he walked off, the crunching of the snow the only reason she knew that. She sighed and gripped the horse’s reins a bit tighter, slowly walking to turn them both around. “Look at that, I’m a damn idiot. He hadn’t left me here before, but he’ll definitely do it now.”

The roaring of the truck being turned back on, a sound she heard as she and the horse made their approach to the correct destination, only solidified that belief. At about the same time she began getting the horse into the trailer, she could see the truck lurching forward, snow being kicked up by the chains on the tires. It went straight for a few moments, before completing a u-turn and heading out towards the exit to the clearing, leaving her standing at the gate to the trailer with a horse that was starting to show that it was cold with shivers that wracked through its whole body. She sighed and stopped trying to put the horse into the trailer, instead preparing to head back towards the stable in the snow.

Another loud rumbling sounded off in the distance, this one causing the horse to jump in fear and begin trying to sprint off in whatever direction it could. As hard as she tried to stop it from being able to, Sully wasn’t able to stop the beast from pulling her off in the direction of the buildings, albeit not the exact one that they needed to be headed towards. She was able to stop the unwilling movement after she was dragged through snow for a few moments, the horse panting and shaking in fear and cold. “You are n-not leading us t-t-to our deaths right now!” Her teeth chattering as the chill was beginning to sink deep into her bones, Sully began leading the horse in the direction they needed to be going. “I d-don’t care if we’ve been left here for d-dead by that bonehead, we’re not going to f-f-fall for it!”

She was so focused on getting back over to the stable that she didn’t notice anything else that was going on around her, not until she heard what sounded like a honking noise right behind her head. It startled her, causing her to look around wildly, and when she saw that the truck had come back and was parked very close to where she was standing, her face, numb as it was from the cold, lit up in a smile. Vaike climbed out, slammed his door, and came to be standing beside her as fast as he possibly could, a worried look on his face. “Well, uh, good news and bad news?” he offered, seeing the look of relief that she was wearing fade away at the phrase. “Yeah, it’s kinda ugly.”

“S-share the news, will you? I’d like t-to not be out in the cold much longer if I don’t have to.” Since he had come to be beside her, she had stopped the movement back towards the stable, but when he motioned for them to keep walking, she had a sinking feeling that she knew what he was going to say. “Okay, w-what’s the news?”

“Good news is, we’re alive and not dead. Bad news is, those rumblin’ noises we heard were from snow fallin’ off the mountain and onto the road back down to Ylisstol.  We ain’t offroadin’ in my truck, not in this weather, so, uh…” His voice trailed off as he watched her gain a horrified expression upon her face. “Oh, ya don’t like the sound of that, do ya?”

She shook her head, half in answering his question, half because it was hard to not start shaking at how utterly cold she was. “No w-way. I never asked to be stranded anyw-where with you, especially not in a st-t-torm like this.” They were walking as they spoke, and they had come up to the stable door, which she had forgotten to close when she had gotten the horse to begin with. This allowed for them to get inside the heated building and become safe, momentarily, from the bitter elements. “W-we’re really stuck here, aren’t we?”

“Hey, the Vaike might enjoy jokin’ sometimes, but not when it’s that kind of serious business. ‘Bout ran into the giant pile ‘a snow coverin’ the road because of how hard it was ta see out there.” He watched her as she led the horse back into its stall, taking off the blanket it had been covered in, and once she had gotten the horse back to exactly how it had been when they had gotten there, she exited its stall and punched the wall as she did. “Whoa there, why’re you upset like that? This ain’t all that bad for you.”

“Because this m-means that, until the road can be cleared, I’m stuck here in the mountains with you. And we both know that you’re going to spend every minute of that time bitching and whining about how you wish you were at home.” Vaike opened his mouth to give a rebuttal, but Sully silenced him by punching the wall again. “N-no, don’t even try to say otherwise. You want to be somewhere very specific, and that place isn’t here. I don’t want to be here either, but I’ll at least try to accept the fact that I’m stuck in a snowy hell for the next who knows how long. You won’t accept it.”

“Clearly I have accepted it, if I came back and didn’t try drivin’ over an avalanche scene!” It was then Vaike’s turn to punch the wall, which he did with enough force to cause dust to shake down from the rafters overhead. “Yeah, it sucks that I ain’t gonna be spendin’ time with people who matter to me, but there’s nothin’ we can do about it now. We’re stuck here, and we’ll be livin’ here as long as it takes for the road to be cleared.”

“More like, we’ll be living in your truck. There’s no way we’re sleeping in the horse stables at a summer camp for days.” Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and counted to herself for a few seconds to bring calmness back to her body, then she re-opened her eyes and saw Vaike rummaging through his jacket pocket looking for something. “No, don’t call anyone. What are you thinking, calling Chrom or your girlfriend will do anything for us? It’ll just worry them.”

“We’ve gotta let someone know we’re stuck here,” he replied, but he pulled his hand out of his pocket as he spoke. “Why not let a police chief know?”

She put her hand on her forehead and ran it down her face. “Because, Vaike, what good does that do us? There’s no way they can get here to rescue us, so letting them know we’re stuck will do nothing but worry them.” Under her breath, she added, “At least, letting them know _you’re_ stuck will do that.”

“Okay, so we don’t tell the boss. That’s cool. What d’ya think we should do when he starts callin’ me in a few hours, wonderin’ why I ain’t shown up to work yet? He’ll be more angry than worried, and there won’t be any amount of us explainin’ what happened to get him to not wanna kill me when we get home.” For a moment, it seemed as if Vaike was going to punch the wall a second time, but as he pulled his arm back to do so, he let his shoulders slump forward and he hung his head dejectedly. “And that ain’t even mentionin’ how dear Lissa’s gonna take knowin’ that I’m out in the mountains with another woman.”

Sully looked at her wrist to mime checking a watch. “Hm, seems it took you no time at all to bring your girlfriend up in all this. Can’t say I’m even the slightest bit surprised. You keep moping about her, and I’ll figure out something for us to do about what we’ve gotten ourselves into.” He didn’t respond, so she figured he was just going to start crying or getting overall sappy about the girlfriend he was so concerned about, and she took that opportunity to walk down through the stables a bit. Having spent a fair amount of time at the place, she knew a thing or two about the layout of the camp, so when she got to the end of the building to find a door, she had her suspicions about what was on the other side.

If there was one positive to the situation, it was that at least the door between the stables and the main house had been left unlocked. Perhaps the camp owners had anticipated the rescuer of their horse getting stranded and made it possible for her to be safe and warm if she did get stuck. In that situation, anyway, they wouldn’t have expected two people to be crashing at their place for an unknown duration of time, and so she made a mental note to remember to tell the camp owners as soon as possible about her and Vaike both being stuck there because of the storm.

She walked into the little kitchen of the cabin and saw that the window over the sink was completely covered in snow—something that made her feel slightly thankful that they had been stuck there after all. “I can’t imagine what it’d be like if we were trying to get back out of these mountains,” she said to herself, before leaving the kitchen to see what else there was of note in the small building. “Pretty sure we’d have killed the horse and possibly ourselves on those roads. Feroxi storms don’t play around, it seems.”

“Guess it’s blowin’ into town now, too.” Sully turned to see that Vaike had followed her into the home, and he was staring at her with a blank expression. “Which ain’t good for them, I guess. Don’t really matter to us since we’re here and not there, but still.”

“How do you know it’s starting to hit down there?” she asked, fully expecting to hear him admit to doing exactly what she had just said not to do and calling someone. It was a bit of a surprise to see him just pull his phone out and pass it to her, letting her see the numerous messages of weather warnings that should have been heeded. “Well, damn. If it’s already getting bad down there, I can’t imagine what it’s actually like up here.”

“Who knows, but the police force is definitely gonna be missin’ my truck in all of this.” He snatched his phone back and sighed. “Oh, and Chrom’s whole family’s gonna be missin’ me bein’ there for their festivities.”

Sully couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Of course you’re back to talking about that. So, okay, it’s a few days before Christmas. You’re telling me they start their celebrating now? Or is there something else that’s going on that’s so damn important that you’re going to become a whiny bitch about it?”

“There isn’t any ‘whiny bitch’ happenin’ here, it’s just a guy bein’ hurt that he’s off bein’ stuck in the mountains while his future family’s all warm and happy together.” As she watched, Vaike walked over to one of the few chairs in the entire house and collapsed into it, the wood of the chair creaking at the force he fell with. “Kinda bites, knowin’ that all their friends are there and ol’ Vaike ain’t. And that, with how this storm’s lookin’ to the people down in town, he ain’t gonna be gettin’ there any time soon.”

“They’ll have the road cleared in a couple days, tops. Then we’ll be back in town and back home and everything will be fine. Hell, I’d even say a couple days might be a bit too long to be waiting. Once someone realizes we’re here, they’ll be sending all the plows they can to get us home safe. Maybe, for once, you being involved with the police chief’s sister will do everyone a damn bit of good.” Sully, approaching another window that was caked in snow, gave a chuckle. “Or maybe they’ll leave you here to try and teach you a lesson.”

“Hey! If anyone on the force does the teachin’, it’s me! They call me Teach for a reason, y’know!” Completely missing the point of what he had just heard, Vaike continued to speak on something irrelevant. “They’ll come ta get us simply ‘cause they won’t be getting anythin’ done without us around! I’ve got the big truck that can drive in anythin’ and you’ve got the attitude that everyone’s afraid to fight against! We’re basically the most important officers in the entire town, and we’re stuck in the mountains in a snowstorm!”

She laughed again at what he was saying. “Sure, we’re important, but I wouldn’t say we’re the most important there is. If and when they come to rescue us, it won’t be because of our job importance. It’ll be because you’re romantically involved with the chief’s sister, and because I’m the ‘other woman’ that you need to be separated from.” Those last words were spat like they were poison, as she truly didn’t believe what she was saying. To her, there wasn’t any point to letting anyone know that she was up at the camp with him, aside from the people who owned the place. She wasn’t the important one there, and there wasn’t any reason for her to try and think otherwise.

The room became silent after that, which Sully found odd as she would have figured that Vaike would have loved to argue with her on her point of them not being the best at their jobs. But when she began to hear rather loud snoring coming from the chair where her companion had seated himself, she realized that he must have dozed off somewhere in the middle of her talking. It had been a long day for them, after all, and he had been scheduled to work that night, so it logically was time for him to be sleeping, a fact she couldn’t fault him on. Rather than disturbing him to continue on with conversation, she spent the time exploring the house a bit more, figuring out the basic things about the place in case anything came up and she needed to know where, for instance, the candles and flashlights were stored in case of weather-induced power outage.

She had no idea how long they’d be up at that camp, but it was better to be prepared for anything than to go into things completely blind. Which she couldn’t say for them getting into the situation in the first place, but that was another gripe for a different moment.

 


	2. From Ferox With Love, Part Two

The faintest of flurries were beginning to fall from a gray sky when the front door opened and the sound of suitcases being rolled in filled the entryway to the house. Standing a bit back from the door, holding her arms out wide to keep two eager children behind her, was the woman of the house, who greeted the incoming guests with a shy smile and a few welcoming words. Like every year for the past many, the holiday tradition was in place: the closest of friends and family members were permitted to converge on the house belonging to one Chrom and his family, and the time of year where that happened was finally upon them.

The two kids were trying their hardest to push past their mother to get to give their own greetings to everyone who was coming inside, but she refused to move from her spot, even after everyone who was coming in was there. “But mom,” the older of the two kids, Lucina, started to whine, grabbing her mother’s arm and pulling on it, “we just wanna say hi! Please, can we?”

“Yeah, can we?” Chiming in with his sister’s question, the younger boy Inigo started tugging on his mother’s other arm. “Please please _please_ can we?”

“Oh, come on Olivia, let them say hi!” Setting her suitcase and bag against the wall, the kids’ aunt Lissa walked up close to them and crouched down, putting her hands on her knees. “It’s been, like, a few weeks since I last saw them and I totally could use a hug from them right about now!”

Their mom gave a small shrug and raised her arms, letting the two kids run forward and tackle their aunt nearly to the ground. “Auntie Lissa, we missed you so much!” Lucina said, clinging tightly to her aunt. “I don’t like you not living here with us.”

“I’m sorry Lucy, but I didn’t want to be in your dad’s hair all that much anymore. Besides, that means you guys don’t have to worry about me being in the way for all sorts of stuff anymore, and I think it’s just better this way.” Smiling, Lissa could hear her niece whimpering about how she still didn’t like it, which then became both of the kids on the verge of crying because they weren’t getting their way. “Hey now, you two, please don’t cry. I’m here this week, aren’t I?”

“Not the same, auntie!” Inigo pushed his face against her shoulder. “It’s not the same!”

“This is why I wanted to keep them from you,” Olivia said, looking at her children and how they had mobbed their aunt when given the chance. “They haven’t handled you moving in with your friend very well at all, clearly.”

“I’m noticing that!” Lissa laughed, trying to pry the kids off of her. “Guys, why don’t you save all this for later? I just got here, and I’ll be here for a week! We have all sorts of time to catch up and do this cuddling stuff and all that!” Despite their protests, they backed off, going back to beside their mother, which allowed for Lissa to stand back up and straighten the bottom of her dress back out. “You guys act like it’s been forever since you saw me, but it’s been just a few weeks. If you are acting like that, I wonder how Chrom’s gonna—er.” She raised a finger, using it to count the people standing before her. “Where’s Chrom?”

Before she got her answer, Olivia looked behind her a bit to see the light snow falling through the front door’s window. “He should be back any moment now, honestly. He promised he would get home before the storm got too bad anywhere, especially up in Ferox.”

Lissa blinked a few times, before raising her finger a bit higher, just to drop it as that particular train of thought on how to react was lost. However, one of the people she had come inside with, who had just been standing idly behind her as everything had just happened, did have something to say. “Pardon, but did you say Ferox? As in, where this storm is blowing in from? Chrom may not always be a logical man, but driving up into the heart of a snowstorm is something that someone of his rank would never do without reason.”

“You did hear me correctly, Frederick. He went to get a dear friend of mine today, even though there is that storm. I’m sure if your wife wanted something so much, you’d do anything to get it for her, no matter the circumstances.” Olivia gave a small sigh as her mouth turned into a smile, before shaking her head and continuing on with her point. “He made preparations in case the storm got bad, which, well, I’m sure it did. Feroxi storms are super terrifying to be caught up in.”

“Which is why I would never do something as boneheaded as drive straight into one, regardless of the circumstances.” Frederick placed a hand on the shoulder of the third person that had come in with him and Lissa. “Sorry, my dearest, but if someone you cared for was on the opposite side of a treacherous mountain range and this type of storm was blowing in across the region, I would not hesitate to deny you your request of me crossing the mountains to get whomever it might be.”

“That’s fine. If someone I cared about was on the other side of the mountains, I would not hesitate to go get them myself.” Causing Frederick to lift his hand and start sputtering about something or other, Maribelle laughed. “Oh, you know I simply jest on the matter! Anyone who gets themselves caught across the mountains in a storm like this has no place in our holiday festivities.”

Ignoring that there was a completely different topic of conversation at hand, Lucina stepped away from her mother a bit and approached the couple at the door, wringing her hands as she did. “Um, I want to ask something,” she managed to say, before realizing that she was talking to two non-family members, both of whom were still focused on the discussion about traversing mountains in snowstorms. “I-I mean, never mind! I don’t want to ask anything!”

“I think you do too want to ask something.” Lissa, watching her niece try and run back to be beside her mom as fast as possible, stopped the little girl and made sure she was still turned to be facing the two at the door. “Go on, just use your big girl words. They won’t bite.”

“Auntie Lissa, can you do it for me? I’m scared.” When her aunt shook her head, the girl sighed. “But I don’t wanna ask, I just wanna see the b-a-b—“ Her attempt at spelling out the word was stopped by someone overhearing what she was saying and reacting with a loud noise of excitement.

“Did I hear a young girl wanting to see the baby? If it gives us an excuse to get away from this drafty door, I am more than happy to let her see the little one!” Olivia pointed over into the sitting room as a good place for them all to move, and she started to head that way to lead the pack. Inigo directly followed her and Lucina ran to not be that far behind, leaving the newcomers there to collect their bags and head to the room as well. Maribelle looked to Frederick with the sweetest smile she could possibly manage and made one request of him: “Could you kindly move my things away from this door here while I do the honors of taking our most precious child in there for everyone to see?” She bat her eyelashes several times, causing him to take in a deep breath before nodding in agreement to what she wanted. “You’re simply the best man I could have asked for. I’m sure Lissa dear can remind you where our bags go.”

Hearing her name be brought up, Lissa shrugged. “Chrom and Olivia probably have some weird new place they want us to put our stuff at. Guess we should just bring it in with us. And that way, we aren’t missing the kids’ reactions to seeing a real life baby in their house.”

“That sounds like a good plan, Lissa. You and I both know how your brother can get when his leadership and ideas are questioned.” Frederick reached for the handle on one of the suitcases that had been brought in, before realizing something that he needed to bring up. “Wait, Maribelle, this will not work the way you want it to.”

“Sure it will. We got all of the things in here, didn’t we?” She had bent down to make sure that the child that was in the carseat sitting behind them was okay, before standing back up and grabbing the handle on the seat to lift it up. “Between you and Lissa, you can manage to get everything. I believe in you both so much, but I cannot deny those precious kids from seeing my beautiful son any longer!” With both hands, she began carrying that seat as quickly as she could out of the room and into the other one, which then left Lissa and Frederick standing there, looking at each other with confused looks.

He spoke first. “She, er, seems to have forgotten that she brought in two bags, and I one as well as the baby. There is no way I will be able to get everything in one trip, unless she assumes I am to leave my own things here, which she is mistaken.”

“I’d say I could help you out with that, but between my bag, the bag of presents, and the bag of baby things I’m _sure_ she’ll need eventually, I don’t have any extra hands myself.” Lissa sighed. “So much for us getting to see Lucina and Inigo react to the baby.”

“While their reactions are sure to be golden, I was more looking forward to seeing how Maribelle handled any small child trying to get too close to him. She might just make either of those kids cry if she gets too overprotective.” Now with two suitcases in hand, Frederick started to head towards that other room, and Lissa grabbed her things from where she had set them, plus the brown-and-yellow bag she knew had all the baby’s essential things in it, and followed him. When they turned the corner to enter the bright room filled with couches and toys, they were treated to the sight of the two older children down on their knees, facing the couch where the carseat had been set.

“You missed it,” Olivia softly said when she noticed that the joiners had come in. “They were both so shocked that words escaped them. A good thing, too, because he’s sleeping and if either of them had woken him, I’m sure Maribelle would have snapped.”

“I would not have snapped, but I would have been fairly upset. It would have been no fault to the children that they didn’t know how to properly handle themselves around someone so young.” Maribelle rocked the carseat a small amount. “I just cannot believe that this really is the first time these kids have gotten to see him. I would have figured that there would have been at least one instance before this…”

The front door to the house slammed open not long after that, the noise loud enough that it was able to disturb the sleeping child enough to cause him to open his eyes and stare out at the two kids looking back at him. He didn’t cry, just staring at the people in his view, and they both loved it. “Oh my gosh, I like him more when he’s not sleeping!” Lucina squealed, putting her hands to her cheeks. “Hi there, baby Brady! I’m Lucy! I’m so happy to see you awake and stuff!”

In response, the baby reached out at her with a small hand, trying to grab her blue hair unsuccessfully, as his arms were not nearly long enough. Seeing the child trying to interact with his sister, Inigo puffed his cheeks out and leaned in closer. “Play with me too, silly baby! Don’t just play with Lucy!” Thanks to how much he had leaned forward, the baby was now able to reach something, and that something happened to be the very end of Inigo’s nose. “Hey! He’s touching me!”

“That’s what you get for pushing in front of me!” Lucina elbowed her brother, causing him to recoil and get out of Brady’s grasp. The sudden loss of what he was holding on to made the baby scrunch his face up as if he was about to cry, so Lucina took quick action and put her hand in front of him, letting him grab onto it. “There, that’s better!”

“What are the kids doing, and why are they crowding around something like there’s a caged animal inside of it?” The voice belonged to someone new joining everyone, and had the kids not been so enthralled with playing with the baby (and fighting over who got to do exactly that), they certainly would have reacted in joy. However, the adults in the room, minus Maribelle who was watching the two kids interacting with her baby very carefully, all looked to see the speaker. “What, no answer? I’m sure someone would love to argue with me that the kid in there isn’t an animal or something like that.”

“No, Chrom, I think we’re all just more relieved to see you here in one piece than we are worried with what you’re saying.” Lissa approached her brother with open arms, offering him a hug, but he denied her request by heading over towards Olivia instead. She huffed, putting her hands on her hips. “Oh, I see how it is. First time you’ve seen your sister in weeks and that’s how you’re going to react to me.”

When she looked to see what had been so important for him to do, she saw that he was giving his wife a quick kiss, before walking back to where he had been moments before, holding his arms out. “Sorry, Lissa. I knew I had worried Olivia a bit too much today with going up to Ferox in the storm, so I figured comforting her was more important than a big old sibling hug.” She broke out into a grin and ran into his arms, and he twirled her around a few times, before they separated. “It’s weird not having you around all the time, you know. You’re welcome to move back in here any time you want.”

“Do not tempt her with such an offer, she might just take it,” Frederick muttered under his breath, before raising his voice to properly greet Chrom. “When Olivia mentioned that you were out in the storm, I simply could not believe what she had said. But you seem to have made it home in one piece, and with your guest, I presume?”

Chrom nodded. “Yeah, sent him upstairs to put his things in the room he’s staying it.” It was then that he looked around and saw the multiple bags that were sitting amongst the people who had gathered. “Er, didn’t you guys take your things upstairs too? It’s not like you haven’t stayed here for the holidays before.”

“I wasn’t sure where you were going to put us, since I don’t live here anymore and all that nonsense.” Laughing, Lissa went and picked up her personal bag. “So same as usual, I’m guessing? We can do that.”

“Good to hear. And please make sure that whoever’s bag that is sitting by the front door gets moved sometime today. That thing caused the door to about hit me in the face when we were coming in.” Chrom punctuated his statement with a chuckle of his own. “Take those things up there and get back down here so we can all gather around and talk like a good family does at this time of year.”

It wasn’t until they were both out of the room that Lissa chose to comment on the part of what Chrom had said that had caught her attention most. “Uh, Frederick, didn’t you say Maribelle was ‘mistaken’ if she thought you weren’t going to grab your stuff? You totally left your bag out by the door so you could grab her things, didn’t you?” He didn’t answer, but judging by the fact that he was only holding one of the two suitcases he had taken into the other room with him, she knew it was completely true. “Oh my gods, you’re pathetic sometimes. Is that what love does to guys?”

“I made a decision that would end up not having Maribelle angry with me that I put myself before her. You are well-aware of how she can get when things are not absolutely her way.” Once they got back to the doorway, he grabbed the other bag and started dragging it with him, and together they started up the stairs. “Plus, by leaving this out there I was able to not miss any more of her first time letting other children be around Brady than possible, and I must say that it went over a lot smoother than I would have assumed.”

“Probably because Maribelle knows that if she does anything to harm those kids, my brother will find out and kick her out permanently.” Lissa snorted in laughter. “Oh man, that would have been fun to have to deal with, wouldn’t it have been?”

“I would rather not have my wife get kicked out of the house belonging to my best friend, thank you very much.” Frederick paused for a second, before lowering his voice. “Unless it was to teach her a very strong lesson on how to be a better person. That I could tolerate, but it would only have to be for a small amount of time.”

Snorting again, Lissa had to stop walking up the stairs for a moment to collect herself before she could continue on. “I wouldn’t actually want her kicked out for real. That’s, like, the cruelest thing anyone could wish upon someone. She could use to learn a lesson in kindness, though, totally. I heard what you said earlier when Chrom offered me my room back, and I know why you said it.”

“It may have only been a few weeks since you moved in with us, but I have heard how many times she has chided you on your decisions and whatnot, so I really could not blame you if you decided you wanted out already.” They had reached the landing at the top of the stairs, and he was waiting for her to guide them in the right direction, which she did after explaining that there was no way that she would have wanted out, because she loved getting to live with her closest friend and the people that mattered most to her. “Yes, but sometimes you have to ignore friendships for what is best for yourself.”

“And if me leaving was what’s best for me, I would do it! But it’s not even close to the best decision, and so I’m not going to do it.” She held an arm out to stop Frederick from walking forward any further. “You guys are staying in the guest room with the big window, I’m sure. I’m staying in my old room, which is still right next to that guest room. So let’s drop our things off real quick and get back downstairs?” She posed it as a question, to which he gave an affirmative answer, but she knew that the truth in the matter was that neither of them were going to rush downstairs. He was going to spend some time making sure that things were unpacked and put away as nicely as possible, and she was going to put her bags on her bed and go check out the other guest room that was upstairs.

Standing in the darkness created by the closed curtains was a person, tall and menacing. They didn’t seem to notice Lissa as she came into the doorway, but when she knocked on the door they gave a grunt and turned to face her, at which time she flipped the lights on. “Oh. You. Chrom’s sister.”

“I have a name, you know,” she replied, taking a step into the room. “Nice to see you too, by the way, Lon’qu. Glad you could make it.”

“As am I. Now leave me be.” Turning back around, Lon’qu made no intentions to say anything else, which only frustrated Lissa. She stood there for several minutes, just watching him, before she felt someone come up behind her and place a hand on her head. She leaned back to see that Frederick had come up behind her and was motioning for her to follow him back down the stairs, which she did with a sigh, making sure to turn the light off in that room before she did. If he wasn’t going to cooperate with her, she was at least going to do him the courtesy of being in darkness once more.

“Might I ask what you were doing there?” Halfway down the stairs, Frederick finally found the words to say something to Lissa, who had admittedly been lost in thought for the past couple of minutes. She gave a small shrug, so he followed up on his question. “Lissa, you know very well that you have a man who loves you, so why try to interact with a new guy? It just does not make any sense.”

Again, she shrugged. “I wasn’t trying to flirt with him or anything. He’s Olivia’s best friend, and Chrom’s pretty close with him, so I figured that I should try being friendly with him. Last year, when he was here, I didn’t say a single word to him because he wouldn’t let me.” She blinked a few times, her gaze casting downward. “And a certain someone wouldn’t _let_ me talk to him.”

“You’re beginning to sound like you have doubts in your relationship with Vaike. Should we discuss this sometime? I am always willing to hear out your problems, just as you hear out mine on occasion.” Despite his offer, Lissa fell silent once more, losing herself to her thoughts, and he sighed. “Just don’t decide on any actions right now. Your boyfriend should be here soon enough and you’ll be reminded of how much you love him once you see him walk through the front door.”

She knew that he was right, but none of this was about romantic feelings. She had legitimately only approached Lon’qu to try and befriend him, and there was nothing more to it, no matter what anyone wanted to think. However, the reminder that her boyfriend would be around at some point that night, if even only for a few minutes, was a good one, because it felt like it had been some time since she had last seen him. Just thinking about him made her heart pick up its pace, because she truly felt like she had found her perfect match in one of the guys that her brother had set her up with. If there was one thing in life that Lissa enjoyed having, it was an older brother who cared so much about her that he tried to make things as perfect as possible, and setting her up with one of the officers working under him was definitely a great thing he had done for her.

When the two got back to the other room, the scene had changed completely from when they had left it. No longer were the other kids crowded around the baby in his carseat, as they were now sitting in between their parents and talking rapidly, and the seat was no longer sitting on the couch where it had been initially placed. Before that could be questioned, though, Maribelle came rushing over to the two, pushing a squirming child into Frederick’s unprepared arms. “Your turn to watch him!” she cheerfully said, not even caring that her husband clearly was not expecting to be holding a baby right then. “I’d like to get to do something that isn’t being a good parent right now.”

“You were left here with him for maybe ten minutes at the most. How can you be tired of watching him already?” Repositioning the child in his arms, Frederick gave her a stern look, to which she rolled her eyes. “Now, now, is that the sort of behavior you have when you are a guest somewhere?”

“Chrom and Olivia _know_ what I want to do, okay? Besides, Chrom said that if I was going to get this done, I should do it before the storm gets worse, and every moment I’m stuck in here being the perfect mother that I am, that is a moment where the storm is getting worse!” Clasping her hands together, she watched as Frederick did nothing but continue giving her that stern glare. “You’re, uh, not buying what I’m saying at all, are you?”

He shook his head. “I know you too well. Your behavior is as if you were going to leave for a little bit, and you would never do that in this sort of weather.”

“But I am going to leave for a little bit!” She unclasped her hands to use two fingers to demonstrate just how long she would be gone for. “And Lissa will be coming with me, naturally. A good person always needs a partner in crime for their actions.”

Lissa seemed shocked at hearing her name being brought up in conversation. “I…am coming with you? Where are we even going?”

“Maribelle, next time you want to do something like this, make sure it’s not at a time when every second counts.” Chrom, standing up and walking towards them in the entryway, gave a small laugh. “Either you explain everything right now or I’ll get my shoes back on so we can do this real quick.”

Dropping her hands to her sides, Maribelle took the first option. “There’s still a fair amount in the car that we really should bring in, if the weather is going to get anything like everyone is saying it is. I would certainly hate to have no way of getting some of my precious baby’s toys because the car is covered in snow!”

“Oh, I can help with that!” Lissa replied, smiling as she did. “For a second, I thought you were really going to drag me along on some joy ride or something and I wasn’t going to be okay with that at all!”’

“It is not going to snow so much that we are unable to get into the car.” Frederick, arms moving slightly to bounce the child within them, looked to Chrom. “Isn’t that correct, mister head of the police force? You would have proposed a city-wide ban on going out if it were to get that bad, correct?”

To that, Chrom shrugged and gave a very non-committal noise that turned into a phrase that made Frederick visibly flinch to hear. “Not exactly? I mean, it’s too late to make a ban, and all that would do is cause everyone to panic and leave to go get prepared for the snowstorm. I wasn’t even sure it was going to be that bad until I was on my way back from Ferox, and even then, Lon’qu was the one who was saying how bad it might get. I think we’ll be fine and able to get out in the morning, honestly.”

“But there’s a chance that we will not be able to?” At that, the two ladies looked at each other and nodded, both leaving to go get things from the car, which left Frederick standing there staring at Chrom with disbelief, especially when the blue-haired man gave a reluctant nod. “I think that, if that were to happen to the vast majority of the citizens here in Ylisstol, things would go incredibly sour come tomorrow afternoon. And with how few members of the police force have vehicles able to traverse snowy roads…it’s simply a recipe for disaster, not just for the force but for the citizens we’ve sworn to protect.”

“Don’t be so wary about what’s going to happen, will you? It’ll be fine, and if it isn’t for us then we’ll have someone who’s able to take care of things do it.” Chrom froze as heard the front door opening, followed by the indistinguishable screaming of the ladies as they went out in to the snow, and once he heard the door slam shut he continued speaking. “Granted, maybe telling both of our snow-savvy drivers to work tonight might have been a bad idea on my part, if we’ll possibly need them in the morning.”

“I think you are severely underestimating what could possibly happen here, Chrom, but your confidence is contagious enough to give me at least a little peace of mind on the matter.” Hearing the door opening again, Frederick took a couple of steps backwards to see what sorts of things the ladies had brought inside with them—and was not shocked in the slightest to see them each carrying a bag, plus a large, unwieldy plastic device between them. “And, ahem, if things do happen to get bad, it seems Maribelle packed our entire house for this trip, so we will be right at home here.”

Chrom too looked to see the ladies, and groaned when he did. “Seems you’re right. Hasn’t she ever heard of packing light? Or asking what we’ve got around here? This all just looks to be more that we have to keep track of and make sure the older kids don’t get too attached to, and I don’t know if I want to hear their constant fighting about who gets to play with your kid with what.” As the two came closer, they called for them to move out of the entryway so they could get everything into the room, and Chrom groaned again. “You guys coming over here for a week shouldn’t be this complicated, Frederick. I just don’t understand it.”

“I don’t exactly understand it either,” he replied, before stepping out of the way as the ladies passed him by. When he made eye contact with Lissa, she gave him a wide-eyed glance back and kept on moving, but when he saw Maribelle she ceased movement, causing Lissa to almost knock them both over as she was still trying to carry the plastic contraption and didn’t know she was supposed to stop. “My love,” he said, raising his eyebrows as he spoke, “was all of this really necessary? We could have asked Chrom if he had any leftovers from when his kids were small, not bring everything we have.”

She gave an offended gasp and dropped everything she was holding, which in turn made Lissa drop what she was holding too out of surprise. Covering her mouth with her hands, she shook her head several times before stepping forward and nearly ripping the content child out of Frederick’s arms. “I would never, and I mean never, stoop so low as to have my little precious Brady have to play with or use anything that has already been well-loved by another child or children, even if they are children of a close friend.”

“Are you two really going to start fighting over this?” Speaking simultaneously, Chrom and Lissa were each looking at a member of the couple, although not the same one, and it seemed as if each of them were trying to give their best friend a dose of common sense. However, it was only Chrom who continued speaking, as Lissa simply gave a long sigh and began dragging things into the other room. “Listen, if you guys want to get into it now, go right ahead, but don’t do it in my house. I’m not letting there be anything negative happening in these walls this year. Everyone’s going to be fun and loving and it’ll be the best holiday season any of us have ever had.”

It took a second of the couple staring at each other for either one of them to budge on their stance, which resulted in Maribelle rolling her eyes and storming off into the other room, child in tow. “I agree, this will be the best holiday season we have all spent together, but at what cost?” Frederick gave a slow shake of his head and repeated himself in a low tone. “At what cost?”

“The cost of us all being here for your kid’s first Christmas, maybe? That’ll be a real experience, seeing his reaction to all the presents he’s getting.” Chrom smiled, patting his friend on the shoulder a couple of times. “And before you say anything about how I’d know he’s getting presents, well, when you have two children around who decided they wanted to spoil the baby…lots of things were bought.” It was then Chrom’s time to mutter something, just under his breath enough that it was clear he didn’t want someone to hear him saying it, but as soon as he was done he was back to the shoulder patting. “You’ll be taking a lot of odd things home with you this year, let me tell you.”

“Er, thanks, Chrom. Now shall we return to where everyone is? It certainly is going to make me look bad if I stay out here longer, because without someone to restrain her, Maribelle will definitely start complaining to your wife about how terrible I am.” Without actually waiting for an answer, Frederick started back into the room on his own, and Chrom quickly followed—not without first turning to look at the stairs and allow himself to frown a little bit at the fact that the other guest to the house was still, presumably, locking himself up in the room he was staying in.

Lon’qu eventually came downstairs to join everyone several hours later, after the snow outside had picked up and the sky had grown darker with evening dusk as well as the thickening clouds. He made no noise when he entered the dining room where everyone had resituated themselves to talk, only pulling out himself a chair and sitting down at the table as far away from everyone as he could manage. As there was a rousing conversation about what to do in case of heavy snowfall happening at the other end of the table, no one broke from the topic to greet him, and so he just sat there in silence until he was flanked by two small children, one of whom grabbed one of his pants legs and began tugging on it. “What do you want?” he gruffly asked, looking between the children. “I do not play, if that’s what you’re here for. Ask your mother, perhaps?”

“See, children, I told you that Lon’qu would not want to play with you.” Coming up behind his chair and resting her arms on the back of it, right behind his head, Olivia gave a soft laugh as she watched the kids freeze up, look at their mom, and run off to find something else to do. “They’re so excited to see their ‘uncle’ that they ignored me saying you weren’t going to want to spend time with them today. What precious kids, hm?”

“If by precious you mean not as bad as other children, simply because they are yours, then I would agree.” She gasped and put a hand to her mouth at what he said, and he gave a gruff chuckle. “No, they are fine. If this trip involved you and them, and only you three, I would enjoy it much more than I currently have.”

“Oh,” Olivia said, moving her fingers from blocking her already-soft voice, “I don’t think I like the sound of you saying that. What’s gone wrong already? Chrom said nothing about the car trip being bad, aside from the weather.”

He leaned forward in his seat but remained silent, causing Olivia to move from where she was standing to right beside him, looking into his face with wide eyes. “I hate when you get insistent like this,” he said, before deciding to honor her question with an answer. “But, no sooner had I gotten everything put where it belongs did that sister of Chrom’s come into my room. Into the room! As if she doesn’t remember I do not handle women well.”

“Lissa just likes being friendly.” Olivia smiled, turning to see where Lissa was sitting and talking excitedly with Maribelle. “She just wants to make sure you’re comfortable here with us for the holiday. I bet she didn’t mean any harm at all.”

“Then she should have stayed out of my room.” The response was harsh, and he followed it with a grunt before pushing his chair backwards and getting out of it to walk out of the room. Hesitating a second to think about following him, Olivia simply sighed and shook her head, choosing instead to go see what her kids had gotten themselves into in the time since they’d been shooed away from where Lon’qu had been sitting. Her leaving the spot where she stood caught the attention of some of the others, especially Lissa, who had heard her name be mentioned and was trying to hear what had been happening in regards to herself.

To hear that man be angry that she had approached him only made her wish that she had been more persistent, that she hadn’t given up on her niceness so easily; at the same time, however, it made her glad that he wasn’t pleased with what she had done. If he wanted nothing to do with her, that was fine, because she had a boyfriend that mattered more to her than any other guy could. And when she’d see him either before he went to work (which was unlikely with how dark it was already getting outside) or in the morning when he got off, she’d make sure to remind herself just how much she loved him.


	3. A Little Bit Stuck

The call came in around three o’clock in the morning, one that had Chrom’s phone loudly ringing and vibrating against the table in his bedroom, which happened to be against one of the walls that made up the core of the house. At about the same time he was finally dragging himself out of bed to pick up the phone, a good number of the people who were rooming upstairs were waking up to see what was causing something akin to an alarm to go off. As people started descending the stairs, Chrom was running out of his room, still on the phone, and he met with the three sleepy people on the stairs about halfway down. The staircase, illuminated only by what pale light was coming through the windows, became where everyone learned that something was very much amiss.

Without explaining what was going on, Chrom pushed the phone at Frederick, who was mid-yawn when he had to put it to his ear to hear what was going on. Once the phone was no longer in his hands, Chrom was dashing back down the stairs, muttering something to himself about the weather. Lissa blinked a few times, not fully awake, but when she heard what Frederick was repeating back to the person he was on the phone with, her eyes sprung wide open and she motioned to grab the phone from him, but he waved her hand away. “Come on, I heard what you just said!” she shrieked, trying to keep her hysterics down to a quiet tone. “You’ve got to let me know what’s going on!”

“If it’s something getting her worked up, it is no matter to me.” Lon’qu, having only come down the stairs to this point because of the noise and his instant worry that it was something to do with the friend who was the reason he was there, turned to go back upstairs, but he was stopped by Frederick grabbing his arm and holding him in place. “No man lays a hand on me and survives with all limbs intact.”

“Leave and I will make sure that Chrom knows a visiting officer from a neighboring region wanted nothing to do with a rescue mission.” The last two words caused Lissa to shriek some more, which made Lon’qu grumble and jerk his arm away from Frederick’s grasp, continuing his way up the stairs. “Fine, I see how it is. I will be alerting Chrom of this behavior as soon as he comes back.”

“Don’t worry about what he’s doing, just tell me what’s going on!” Still grabbing for the phone, Lissa had to be shushed loudly, an action to which she pouted. “Come on. You were totally talking about my boyfriend and there’s a _rescue_ mission going on now? I need to know the details! Is he okay? Did he get stranded somewhere while on the job?”

Frederick, who was very much still on the phone, shushed her again. “Not right now, Lissa. I have to figure out the best way to approach this complicated situation before I let any civilians get involved.” She stomped her foot and went to say something else, but he put a finger to her lips and she just stared at it in silence as she tried to figure out why he was doing such a thing to her. Then, after hearing his conversation with the person on the other end of the phone for a few seconds longer, she got the clue of what was happening.

“He’s stuck somewhere not around here, isn’t he?” The question came out without her intending for it to, as she was still supposed to be silent, but she simply had to ask it. Seeing the look in Frederick’s eyes as he gave her a small nod sealed the deal, and her face fell into a deep frown. “What’s he doing somewhere that isn’t in town? I’m in town! Is he trying to get away from me or something?”

“No, Lissa, but we’re not sure where he is or what he’s doing there.” Coming back to the bottom of the stairs, his winter coat being zipped up as he spoke, Chrom looked up to his sister and mimicked her frown. “No one can get through to him, which would make everyone assume the worst except, well, this is Vaike we’re dealing with. That man could sleep through his bedroom being destroyed and he wouldn’t budge an inch. We’ll have to see what happened to him come morning, but just to be safe, I believe Frederick and I are going to go check out his place and make sure he’s not there.”

“We are?” Finally getting off the phone, Frederick looked at Chrom as if he had just said something completely absurd. “But the weather outside isn’t exactly something that either of us have vehicles capable of driving safely in. In fact, as we have said many times, the person we know with the best snow vehicle is the one we’re currently searching for.”

Chrom shrugged, a motion barely visible through his large coat but definitely able to be heard thanks to the rustling of the fabric his coat was made of. “That’s too bad, I guess. At least we know that, when we get to Vaike’s place, if that monster truck of his isn’t sitting outside, he’s not home. Now get ready to get going, time is not on our side right now, not in a storm like this one.” With reluctance in his movements, Frederick first tossed the phone down the stairs for Chrom to barely catch, and then he was headed upstairs to put on his own heavy jacket. That left Lissa standing there alone, beginning to shake a little as she thought about what could possibly have happened to her boyfriend. “Hey, sister, don’t be so worried about what’s going on. Sorry that you got woken up to begin with, but maybe it’s for the best that you found out about this now and not in the morning.”

“But Chrom, I have to do something to help!” Her shaking getting more noticeable, Lissa balled her hands into fists and let them tremble at her sides. “I can’t just sit here while you two are out in the snow looking for him!”

“Sure you can, and you will. It’s going to be dangerous enough with the two of us going out, the last thing we need is for you to come with and for something to happen.” Chrom watched as his sister’s anger grew, until it got to the point where she charged down the stairs, leaping off from several stairs above the bottom landing and hitting the floor with a loud thud that would have worried him, had she not recovered it from it promptly and grabbed his arms to look him dead in the eyes, the pale light just enough to show that she had a panicked expression on her face. “Lissa, please. You know that I’m not allowing you to come with for your own safety.”

She shook him a little bit, half due to her own shaking, half because she was so angry that she didn’t know how else to express that aside from physical actions and tearing up. The second point became evident when she spoke again and her voice was choking up slightly due to the onset of tears. “But what if he’s not okay? You’re going to make me wait until morning to know if my boyfriend’s fine or not, and I don’t want to do that! I need to know what’s happened to Vaike, I just need to!”

“No, what you need to do is go back up to bed. We’ll most likely find him fast asleep at his place, and when we get him awake he will claim he didn’t remember he had to work. Simple as that. You don’t need to worry about him, and you don’t need to come with us.” She clearly didn’t like that answer, as she coughed out a sob and let go of him, stepping back a bit and rubbing at her tear-filled eyes. “Don’t try to play the pity card here, please. Just go back upstairs and forget this even happened.”

“You think it would be easy to do that?” she asked, voice wavering. “Do you really think that I could go up there and sleep, knowing that Vaike’s missing or something in this storm? I just can’t do it, Chrom!”

“By all means, take her with you instead.” Walking down the stairs, Frederick joined into the conversation with a long sigh as he finished putting on his jacket. “I would be more than happy to not have to go out into this storm if at all possible. Plus, by leaving me here, you allow me to—“

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by the sound of stomping upstairs, and they all turned to look to see what was going on. The stomps stopped after a door was heard opening, which allowed them all to hear the faintest of whimpers, and then the door was quickly slammed shut and the stomps continued until they all saw a figure standing at the top of the stairs. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but it is _snowing_ out there, and I don’t want the love of my life getting killed out on the roads!” If her prior behavior hadn’t done the honors of waking everyone else in the house up, Maribelle’s shrill voice definitely should have. “He is not going out there tonight, not unless you have a very good reason as to why!”

“—not worry her.” Sighing once more, Frederick shook his head. “I explained to her what was going on, and her reaction was to try and pin me into the room. Thankfully, and I do mean thankfully, she realized that was a bad idea and gave up. However, I believe that if we do go ahead and leave, she will not let me live this down.”

“That’s too bad, because we’re the ones who are going out on this potential rescue mission. No ifs, ands, or buts, I’m afraid.” Chrom, still looking up at the top of the stairs, didn’t notice his sister stepping away, because he was too busy watching Maribelle glaring down at them in anger. “Hey, Maribelle, there’s no use in getting angry. I promise that he’ll get back safe, but until then, you and Lissa can just go back to bed.”

The entryway to the house became filled with a crisp breeze as Lissa, having walked over to the front door unnoticed, opened the door to see what was going on outside. “Uh, I don’t think anyone’s going anywhere,” she quipped, sniffling and shivering. “Come look at this. It’s, like, the craziest thing I’ve ever seen!”

“Very funny, Lissa. Just because I’m not letting you go doesn’t mean that we’re just not going.” Turning his attention away from Maribelle, who was starting to descend the stairs to give him a piece of her mind, Chrom joined his sister at the front door, giving a flat “oh” as he saw what had prompted her to say what she had said. The snow had piled up high in front of the door, driven by the blustery wind, and there was a drift standing about thigh-high that had collected. It looked to be just as deep, if not deeper, throughout the yard and into the street, and, worst of all, what should have been able to have been seen of cars in the driveway was obscured almost entirely by piles of snow. “Well, I’ll be. This is not what I thought this storm was going to turn into.”

“We’re stuck here, aren’t we?” Frederick asked as he too went to join them by the door, and when he saw his answer he put a hand to his forehead and rubbed a bit at his temples. “This does not bode well for us going out and finding whatever happened to Vaike, which is both a good and bad thing, I would say. Good in that we have no chance to get stranded somewhere, bad in that we are technically stranded here.”

Closing the door, Chrom began unzipping his jacket, shaking his head as he did. “Now that there’s no way we’re getting out of here tonight, I should call the station back and let them know what’s going on. That also means that everyone else not just can, but should, go back to bed. No reason for any of us to be up any longer.”

There was no reluctance in Frederick’s reaction to that, as he quickly turned and headed back up the stairs, meeting Maribelle somewhere in the middle and they went back up together, the sound of them bickering able to be heard until they were back in their room with the door closed tight. Lissa took a bit longer to go back up, waiting until she saw her brother pressing his phone close to his face as he walked back to his room, but once she knew he was doing something about the situation she too was headed off to bed. But, as she walked down the hall to where the room she was staying was, she noticed a light on in one of the other bedrooms, the one belonging to Lon’qu. That stopped her motion, as she looked down at the floor and the bright light emanating from underneath the door, and her first instinct was to knock on the door and see what was going on in there.

Her hand was hovering right by the door when she realized it wasn’t the best of ideas, not after how he had acted the last time she had tried talking to him, so she dropped her hand and went to her room without further incident. Once she was inside and back in bed, she gave her phone a longing look, before giving in and grabbing it off the nightstand. Her fingers trembling as she went to her recent call log, she gave a deep sigh and pressed call on the first instance she saw her boyfriend’s number, hoping that he’d at least answer for her…

* * *

To put things lightly, the phone hadn’t stopped going off all night. Already having had put it on silent and flipped it over so that its bright screen wasn’t flooding the room with light every time someone new started trying to call it, Sully really wished that she had some way of getting the vibrating to stop as well. But try as she might, she couldn’t get the device to be put on a true silent mode, not without the passcode, and if she had any idea of what the passcode was, she would have answered the calls a long time ago. The only other option she could think of, aside from tossing the phone out into the snow, was to put it in a different room and ignore it, but she didn’t want to make that sort of decision when she didn’t know how the phone’s owner would react to it being moved without his permission.

How she really wished that he hadn’t somehow managed to stay asleep after dozing off for that nap earlier in the evening. “Damn it, why is everyone trying to call and find him _now_?” she asked, covering her face with a pillow as she tried to block out the noise of the vibrating phone. “It’s early in the morning. No one’s awake except graveyard shift workers, which we’re clearly not.” It was a moment or two after saying that when she realized that, had they not been stuck in the cabin in the mountains, that one of them would indeed be such a worker. “Oh, well, neither of us are working a graveyard tonight. So knocking off the phone calls would be just fine and dandy right about now!”

She heard a murmur across the room from the cramped couch she was trying to sleep on, and so she sat up, hoping to see movement in the chair where her companion was sleeping. There was no such luck, as he seemed to have only been readjusting himself, which made her lay back down with a groan. “Thanks so much, Vaike. You and your damn phone and damn friends worrying about you and all that. I appreciate it so much.” After the vibrating stopped for the millionth time, she thought that maybe she was going to be able to get to sleep after all, sans the pillow covering her face, and for maybe fifteen minutes it seemed like she was going to get her wishes. But the phone began ringing, something that she thought she had disabled, and it was a clearly distinct ringtone that she just knew he had purposely set to ignore any silent mode the phone might be in.

And even though the phone was going off with something that should have mattered more to him, he still slept, leaving Sully to finally make the decision to get up and put the phone somewhere that wasn’t nearby. When she grabbed his phone off the table, it still ringing with some cheesy love song, she couldn’t help but notice that his lock screen had come alive with not just a notification of missed calls (of which there was a whole lot), but a picture of him and his girlfriend that had them both grinning at the camera like they were trying to out-smile the other. She couldn’t help but crack a bit of a smile at the sight, but once the screen faded to black and the song stopped, she was back to being neutral-faced. The bathroom sink may not have been the nicest place to leave the phone overnight, but it definitely kept it from being heard out on the couch when it continued to be called over and over again.

Walking back over to her makeshift bed for the night, Sully felt the slightest bit guilty for hiding the phone like that, but she was tired and needed to be able to sleep without something waking her up every time someone else decided to call. Laying back down and keeping the pillow under her head rather than over it, she prepared herself for a somewhat decent night of rest, and fell asleep somewhat quickly—just to be woken up what felt like seconds later by a hand touching her shoulder. “Back the hell away from me right now,” she said, her eyes shooting open to see the room was flooded with the morning light and that it was Vaike standing over her, slowly backing away like she had demanded. “Ugh, it’s just you. Guess I should have figured that one.”

“Yeah, just me. Gotta ask ya somethin’, though. You seen my phone anywhere? It ain’t on the table where I left it.” She could tell by his voice that he was seriously looking for it and quite concerned that he hadn’t already found it, and she gave a small laugh, which spiraled into a fit of forced laughter. “What’s so funny? The Vaike only asked where his phone was.”

“That’s what’s so funny, idiot.” Sitting up and swinging her legs over the edge of the couch so that she was sitting properly, Sully stopped her laughter to wave in the direction of the bathroom. “I put it in the sink so I didn’t have to keep hearing it ringing all night. Surprised you didn’t wake up to any of it.”

He didn’t say anything to her about that until after he had gone and retrieved his phone, and the next time she saw him he was already looking through the notifications of the missed calls. “Wow, how’d I sleep through all this?” he asked himself, to which she rolled her eyes because she had made a comment about that merely moments before that he probably had ignored. “Chrom callin’ me, work callin’ me, even Lissa callin’? Seriously, how’d I sleep through that one?”

“I was asking myself that. After she called, I couldn’t take it anymore and put the phone in the sink to not have to hear it. What, do you think everyone knows that you’re missing, or what?” It wasn’t a serious question, because if so many people were calling in the early hours of the morning, it was obvious that they knew something was up. “You should probably let Chrom know what’s going on now, since you didn’t get the chance to last night.”

“Probably, yeah. Poor guy’s got to be worryin’ his head off ‘bout me, since ol’ Vaike’s one of his best officers and all that.” Yet, he didn’t make any motion to call anyone, instead just staring down at the screen he held in his hands. She raised her eyebrows at him and asked him if he was going to get around to it or what, and he gave a slow nod. “Sorry, just thinkin’ ‘bout how if he knows, then Lissa knows, and I ain’t wantin’ her worrin’ too much ‘bout me bein’ up here.”

“Obviously she knows if she called you so damn early in the morning,” Sully replied, stretching a bit before standing up. “Now get to calling Chrom and explaining why you weren’t at work and all that, okay? I’m going to make some calls of my own and see what we can do while we’re stuck up here.” She watched as he gave in to what he knew what he needed to do, finally getting around to pressing the necessary buttons on his phone’s screen, and she couldn’t help but crack a smile when she saw him rather reluctantly put the phone to his ear to be able to talk, and although she knew she wanted to be around to hear whatever conversation was about to happen, she also knew that she needed to get on those calls of her own. Stepping out of the house by way of the connected stable door, she began to walk down to where the horse, the entire reason they were stuck in the mountains in the first place, was awaiting its morning meal.

While out there taking care of the horse and spending time with the only animal present that she would always be able to tolerate (a thought she had and then quickly regretted having, because mentally referring to the guy who had given up his afternoon to help her out as an _animal_ was simply cruel), she made sure to place a phone call to the owners of the camp, letting them know that the road was now blocked going to and from both Ferox and Ylisse, and that she only knew that because her and her ride had gotten trapped at the camp due to the second avalanche. The couple, apologizing profusely for having requested that she go up to the camp to get the horse in the first place, told her that, as long as they were stranded there, that they could do whatever they needed to with what was around. They listed off several things that could not be done as well, including trying to run too many electric devices at once and keeping the heat on inside the main house for too long without letting the generator that powered the house have some time to cool down.

Those were warnings that Sully sort of put into the back of her mind, not seeing them as important enough to warrant remembering them for more than a few hours. After all, they weren’t going to be trapped up at the camp for too much longer, and those sorts of warnings only applied after days of use. At most, they’d be there for a few days, but definitely home by Christmas morning. When she said that, still on the line with the owners, they gave awkward laughs before explaining that the storm, especially in such a remote place in the mountains, wasn’t simply going to pass by and allow for two avalanche scenes to be cleared up in a matter of days. “Uh, they better clear it up that fast,” she said in response, looking at the horse she was feeding as she spoke. “We don’t have the time to be stuck up here for weeks. Hell, we don’t have the time to be stuck up here now!”

“Oh dearie, it won’t be weeks,” the female owner of the camp replied, her voice trying to sound like a bright beacon of hope, which quickly came crashing down when she finished her thought. “By this time next week, they’ll come up and clear the road for you and you’ll be set to go home.”

“Next week?” she repeated, to which the woman repeated it right back. “Listen, next week isn’t going to work. You know what’s this week? Christmas. That damn holiday is this week. And the guy that’s stuck up here with me? He’s going to lose his mind if he finds out he’s stuck here with me for Christmas, instead of being with his girlfriend in her brother’s house. And do you know what the hell comes after that, the very next day?” This was most definitely a fact that the woman wouldn’t know, and it was one that Sully was honestly surprised she remembered herself. “That’s the guy’s birthday. If we’re stuck here until next week, he’s spending his damn birthday here, with me and your horse as his only company.”

Her harsh way of reacting didn’t earn her any sympathy from the couple, who acted to end the conversation as quickly as they could after that. This then left her, still feeding the horse, to dwell on the fact that, according to the people who normally lived in this place, there was no way they were getting out in a timely manner. There was no way that they were going to get home and return to their normal lives before the big holiday was already past, and that was not the sort of news she wanted to break to someone who so strongly wanted to get home. She held onto this bad news as long as she could, but eventually there would come a point where hiding in the stable with the horse wasn’t going to be a viable option, and that was coming upon her fast.

She had to find a good way to let it slip to Vaike, in simple-to-understand terms, that his kindness of driving her up to this camp had resulted in them both being stranded for an indeterminate amount of time, but for no less than a week. Already dreading what kind of reaction that revelation was going to get, she finished up with feeding the horse, gave it a quick brush-down, and walked back through the stable and tried to open the door to get back into the house—not expecting to have the door get pulled away from her as she reached for the handle. “Oh, you’re tryin’ to come in? Well I’m tryin’ to get out to talk to ya, so we’ve gotta decide where we’re goin’, I guess.” There was a nearly tangible sadness to Vaike’s voice as she heard him talk, but she couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eyes to see what was going on. “C’mon, let’s just come inside the house and talk this one out.”

“Yeah, let’s do that,” she replied, stepping through the door he was holding open, still making sure not to look at him whatsoever. Once she knew the door was closed, she took a deep breath and faced what she figured was going to be a heartbroken man; what she saw instead was a straight-line mouth and almost no real expression to the rest of the face she was looking into. “Okay, what’s your deal? You sounded like you were about to cry just a second ago, and now you’re looking like you just don’t give a damn about anything. What’s got your goat?”

He shook his head, not losing the lack of expression. “It’s nothin’, really. You were out there for a long time, though, which makes the Vaike a bit worried. What were you talkin’ about for so long?”

“Same answer as what you just gave me. Nothing, really.” Watching as he finally let his emotions appear in his face, the corners of his mouth turning downward and his eyes beginning to shine with what she could only assume were going to become big, manly tears, she realized that if they kept on their current path, there was going to be no information shared whatsoever. There was no way that she was going to call Chrom and implicate herself in the mess (although that was probably something she needed to do, before she missed work and he wasn’t aware of why that was), and there was also no way that Vaike was going to call the camp owners and find out what she had been told. “Fine, there is something. Go on, be surprised or whatever.”

“It’s that we ain’t gettin’ home anytime soon, ain’t it?” The way he spoke, his strong voice cracking, made it clear to Sully that he knew exactly what she did, but from a different source. She waited a moment before nodding, which made him give a long sigh, leaning his head back to stare up at the ceiling for a few seconds. “Chrom was tellin’ me that the roads in town are terrible. Worst he’s ever seen ‘em, in fact. They can’t get outta the house—which wouldn’t be such a problem if ol’ Vaike and his big truck were around to get people places. But I ain’t around, and they know it ‘cause of me not showin’ up to work last night.”

“How the hell can he tell you’re not around just by you not going to work? I mean, it’s clear that if you had taken a nap before work, you could have slept through any and all alarms trying to wake you up, so you could have just been at home.” It was an optimistic comment, one that she hoped he’d say something back to that told her that he hadn’t said where he really was.

That optimism was way too good to ever be a reality. “He guessed it. Figured that I woulda come over had I been around. And he was right! I really woulda made my way over to his house if it was possible!” He moved a hand to wipe a tear off of his cheek. “So I told ‘im every detail I could. Told him ‘bout how you wanted to rescue a horse, ‘bout how you needed someone with a truck to help ya out…and ‘bout how we got stuck up here thanks to the snow. He did some researchin’ and said that the storm won’t be gone enough to get the road cleared ‘til next week. Said that we ain’t gettin’ outta here before that.”

“That’s what the owners of this place said too,” she said, turning to face the window in the kitchen so that she wasn’t looking at one of the strongest men she had ever met breaking down into a puddle of tears. “I fought with them, because that sounded like the dumbest damn thing anyone had ever told me, but for Chrom to tell you the same thing, it just means there’s some truth to those words.” After a second’s pause, she added, “And that also means that I should call them back and apologize for being a bit bitchy about what they were saying, but now’s not the time for that.”

“Right, because now’s the time to realize that if it weren’t for you tryin’ to be a horse savior and ignorin’ the Vaike when he said we needed ta turn back, we’d be home safe right now!” Instead of the sadness he’d been giving off before, now hints of anger were coming through in his words. “Y’know, if you’d’ve just listened to me, we’d be where we belong! You with whoever you were gonna be spendin’ this time with, and me with Lissa and Chrom and everyone else that’s gathered at that house!”

“Oh, of course this goes straight back to you being upset because of her, doesn’t it?” Still looking out the window and not at him, Sully rolled her eyes. “Don’t you have better things to be worrying about than your girlfriend? Like, I don’t know, the fact that we’re stuck in the mountains for who knows how long?”

His reaction to what he heard was to kick the nearest thing he could find, which happened to be a wall that didn’t budge an inch when the forceful foot connected with it. “No, damn it, right now there ain’t better things to be worryin’ about, because right now all I want to think about is how I’m supposed to be with her and her family and gettin’ in all their good graces so that on Christmas mornin’ I could ask her to be mine forever!” He kicked the wall again, letting loose a few curses after he did so. Somewhere in the middle of the cursing, he broke down into real crying that choked out half of the syllables in what he was saying—but the damage was already done. He had made it beyond clear that being stranded had very severe consequences in regards to his holiday plans, and for the first time it really hit her that maybe his talking about his girlfriend had really meant something.

Finding the words to react to what had just happened was hard, but she knew that she couldn’t let his tearful cursing be the last word in the conversation. “I didn’t know you were planning anything like that,” she admitted, speaking loudly to be heard over the sounds of his anger and crying. “Had I known, I would’ve listened when you suggested turning around. Hell, I’m sure I would have gone to someone else for help, rather than risking keeping you away from where you wanted to be this next week.”

“Doesn’t matter now, does it?” His voice was choked up, and she could tell without hesitation that he was still crying. “We’re stuck here. Instead of gettin' to surprise her with bein’ mine forever, that mornin’ is gonna be just another mornin’, and it ain’t even gonna be one spent with her.” He inhaled deeply, before continuing on. “Ain’t nothin’ we can do ‘bout what we’ve gotten ourselves into, ‘cept makin’ the best of the situation.”

“How do we make the best of this situation, when you’re so damn broken about being snowed in here that you’ve broken down into tears?” Her question was serious, but Sully didn’t expect to get much in the way of an answer to it, simply because she knew that there wasn’t really any sort of answer that could be given. There wasn’t a good way for them to handle being stuck there, especially not when he had so many plans that were being thrown away due to their unfortunate circumstances. “I figured as much. There is nothing for us to do except suck it up and survive the next week or so until they clear the road and we’re able to get home. Does it suck? Damn straight it sucks. But we’ve got no choice in the matter.”

“Just leave me alone for a bit. Need to do some thinkin’ on how I’m gonna handle this.” The way he spoke gave more of a reason for her to step away for a while than his words did, because he was speaking with a sadness that would have made her start crying as well if she was ever prone to showing emotions through tears. She silently followed his request, walking to the other side of the house and looking through everything that was now hers for the using while they were stranded there, the sounds of his emotional breakdown, mostly sniffles and the occasional cough, still able to be heard from by the door.

In the time she spent searching the living room of the house, she found very little of interest, but when she opened the only door that hadn’t yet been opened since they got there, she found a cold, dark bedroom that seemed to have not been fit for humans to sleep in; that was odd, in that people lived in this house and they clearly didn’t sleep on the couch or in the chair every night. She looked for a light switch and couldn’t find one, so using her phone as a flashlight, she investigated the room as best as she could. It seemed to have lamps laying around to be used as light sources, but she couldn’t manage to turn any of them on, and when she found the curtains covering the window, opening them did nothing but let in a very small amount of light.

“What good’s a window if it doesn’t bring in light?” she asked out loud, knocking on the frozen glass as she did. More light began to shine in, and it hit her that the window normally would be letting in a lot of light, but there was just so much snow caked onto it that it was blocking out everything. The thought of that much snow being outside made her swallow down hard in regret, as it was that snow that had ruined so much already, and was only going to end up ruining more.

In her hands, her phone began to vibrate, and Sully’s immediate reaction was to frown at it. Who was calling her: the owners of the camp, her boss, someone else? It really didn’t matter who it was, because she wasn’t going to answer it anyway, not when she was pretty sure her reaction to anyone was to yell at them that this wasn’t her fault, that she hadn’t intended to get them trapped in the mountains in the days before Christmas, that she had only wanted to save a horse, not need a rescue mission to eventually come up and save her. But when the phone stopped and vibrated again moments later, indicating that the person had left a voicemail, she figured that it had to have been something more important than someone asking what was going on.

The number that had called was one she had saved for work purposes, but belonged to someone who she enjoyed talking to outside of the context of the police force, simply because he was so strong and good at what he did. She aspired to be as well-rounded of an individual as he was, and she knew that, because of their out-of-work friendship, if Frederick was calling her, he wasn’t doing it to be rude, but rather to try and be helpful in the way that he always managed to be. However, when the voice that was leaving the voicemail belonged to a female that Sully also knew and tried not to ever interact with, she knew that something was going on at Chrom’s house and this was everyone’s way of letting her know she had done something wrong—until she heard the entirety of the message.


	4. Unruly Behaviors

After the night she had been forced to go through, who could blame Maribelle for being grouchy in the morning? To be woken up in the dark of night by something going on downstairs was one thing, but to be almost forced out of bed when her husband came into the room and said that he was going out in the snow was another. She had done what she needed to do to get him to rethink that decision (or, rather, the snow had done that for her), but it still meant that she had spent a little bit of prime sleeping time being awake for the stupidest of reasons. Add in the fact that she always woke up early anyway to prepare herself for the day, and it was a recipe for her being a real _gem_ to be around once everyone else was up and around.

Her first order of business, once it wasn’t taboo to be walking around and interacting with people, was to go flop on Lissa’s bed, waking the other woman up by startling her. “M-Maribelle, what are you doing?” she panted, once she had gotten over the fact that her sleep was finished by her best friend getting on her bed. “Can’t you see I was trying to sleep? It’s way too early for this, don’t you think?”

“It is never too early to wake up and become presentable, my dear. Besides, I am fairly certain everyone else is awake but you, and that includes all the children in the house.” That wasn’t the truth and Maribelle knew it, but she wanted to guilt-trip Lissa into getting up, and she couldn’t think of any other way. “Do you really want to be known as the one who sleeps in past when the young children wake up?”

“Come on Maribelle, I know you’re lying. If the kids were up, you’d have one of them with you.” Her eyes still heavy with sleep, Lissa resituated herself in her bed, kicking Maribelle off of her. “Just let me sleep for a little bit longer, please. I was up way later than I should have been just thinking about things.”

Taking the cue to get off the bed, Maribelle got up and straightened her clothing to make it look like she hadn’t done anything childish. “What sorts of things? You simply must tell your best friend about what kept you awake. Was it your boyfriend? Did thoughts of worries about what is going on with him keep you up?” When Lissa didn’t answer, Maribelle sighed and leaned back over the bed, reaching for one of her friend’s feet to try and tickle it through the blankets. “Tell me, or I’ll take drastic action and you will regret withholding information from me.”

“It was something to do with him, sure. I can say that I was totally thinking about Vaike for a little bit last night, but…” Her voice trailed off as she sleepily stared into the distance, and when she regained her train of thought she was making a completely different point. “You know, you can’t tickle me through blankets. Chrom used to try that all the time to get me out of bed, and it just doesn’t work.”

Stopping her attempt at “drastic action”, Maribelle simply flopped onto the bed once more and huffed loudly. “You were saying something else and I demand that you go back and tell me it right now,” she said, rolling onto her back and looking up at the ceiling. “Tell me or I’ll…I don’t know, call your boyfriend and tell him some nasty lies or something of that nature. I feel that would be fitting.”

“He wouldn’t answer his phone anyway, so it doesn’t even matter.” Yawning, Lissa burrowed her head back into her pillows. “Now leave me alone, pretty please? I just want to sleep for a bit longer and not get so lost in my thoughts this time.” Only obliging because of how polite she was when she had asked, Maribelle got up once more and left the room, closing the door behind her as she did. Lissa said something as she was closing the door, but she wasn’t quite able to catch it, and she didn’t want to cause more trouble than she needed to, not after she had already unwillingly woken someone up.

Poking her head into her own room, she saw someone else that she knew needed to be awake and active in the day’s activities, and this person wasn’t going to get the luxury of sleeping in more due to staying up late. Putting on her fakest, but most concerned-sounding, voice that she could manage, she cupped her mouth with her hands and called out, “Oh no! Frederick! It’s terrible!” He didn’t seem to move at the sound of her voice, so she decided to shout something that would certainly get him to perk up and stop sleeping: “I can’t seem to find Brady anywhere! He must have gotten out of his crib overnight!”

“If you are trying to be funny, I suggest you stop.” Without moving at all, Frederick spoke, his voice stern and showing that he wasn’t exactly willing to put up with such lies. “Joking about our child being abducted in the night is never going to be funny.”

“I didn’t say he was abducted, just that he got out. You must still be sleeping if you heard me that wrong.” Maribelle puffed her cheeks out for a second, before deflating them to actually enter the room. “I’m sure if we left him unattended long enough, he’d find a way to climb out of his crib on his own.”

Throwing the blanket that he had been under away from him, Frederick got up out of bed and took a moment to collect himself and stretch, before walking over to Maribelle, grabbing her shoulder, and shaking his head. “No, my love, he would not find a way to do that. He would never dare leave where you’ve placed him, not without letting you know first. I’m sure that, if for some reason someone came in here with the intent of taking him from us, he would have begun screaming and crying to let us know that someone who wasn’t one of us, or rather, someone who isn’t you, was trying to take him.”

“You didn’t need to lecture at me on something I know very well.” Giving a fake sniffle, Maribelle pushed Frederick’s hand off of her before pushing past him and heading over to the side of the crib where the child who was meant to be there definitely was still sleeping. “We’ve quite accidentally raised ourselves a spoiled little mother’s boy, and I can’t say that I’m unhappy with that.” She leaned over the side of the portable crib and her face lit up in a smile just seeing her son laying there, fast asleep like he had no idea anything was going on above him. “I should wake him up.”

“I will not object to that, but if you do then you and you alone will be tasked with calming him down when he starts crying due to you giving him a rude awakening.” Closing their door for a moment, something Maribelle was only aware of because she heard it latch shut, Frederick changed into his clothes for the day, making sure to toss his nightshirt at Maribelle as he did. She laughed when the shirt hit her back, and her laughter was enough to cause the sleeping child beneath her to let his eyes flutter open; seeing his mother hovering above him was a calming sight, but he quickly started to whimper and whine due to being awake when he most likely didn’t want to be. “What did I say? You have fun calming him back down now, dear.” Re-opening the door, Frederick got out of the room mere seconds before the loud crying began.

Even though it was entirely her idea and mostly her fault that Brady was even awake to begin with, Maribelle wasn’t pleased that she had been left to take care of him while he was being so fussy. “Oh, come here, you big baby,” she said, reaching down and picking her son up, despite him trying to squirm out of her grasp. “You’re getting to be so noisy when you start crying like this, and I cannot even say it’s the cute kind of crying anymore.” Now, being rude to other people when she was tired and grouchy was just something Maribelle did—but whenever it came to her trying to be rude to her son, she could say a few things before she began to regret her words. And when she looked into his pitiful face and saw his little gray eyes just swimming in tears, she wanted to take back what she had just said. “No, no, it’s still very much the cutest crying I’ve ever seen. Just don’t be so loud about it, not when people like lazy Lissa are still trying to sleep.”

Cue the very person she just mentioned running down the hall, hair askew and clothes barely on straight. “I hate when I get woken up by a baby I’m not even related to!” she grumbled, trying as quickly as she could to get her hair up in its normal pigtails as she started dashing down the stairs.

“Ignore what I just said, I guess. Cry away, my sweet child.” She pulled him in close to her chest, as he seemed to take her words to heart and began wailing even louder; her hushing and shushing wasn’t very loud, nor was it really meant to be doing much of anything, but she rather enjoyed the feeling of having her upset child in her arms like she currently did, and she wasn’t going to try hard to get things to change. Not without reason, anyway, and some sort of reason was going to come around sooner or later in that house.

What ended up happening was the two other children of the house came running up the stairs, looking to see what was going on upstairs that was making the baby they were both so enamored with cry. When they found that there wasn’t really anything _making_ him cry, more that his mother was just enjoying hearing him do just that, they went to leave with less questions answered than they had expected, until Lucina had the idea to ask if they could maybe play with the baby to cheer him up. “Do you really think he needs cheering?” Maribelle asked, finally needing to actually shush her son so that she could hold a conversation. “I think him crying is a good thing. Makes him realize that simple tears will never get him what he wants.”

“But him crying is so sad,” Lucina replied, looking down at her feet as she spoke, “and I don’t like it. Inigo doesn’t like it too, but he’s scared to say it.” That fact was evident by the way that her brother was hiding behind her, not even looking anywhere near where Maribelle was. “Please let us play with him to make him happy!”

“If you insist, but I’m not letting you three play up here, if that’s what you were thinking.” Heading towards the door, the two blue-haired children following her like ducklings, she took one look at the small hallway and its unobstructed view of the staircase before feeling correct with her decision that she had just made. “See, children, playing near stairs is a bad thing when you’re dealing with a small one who is learning how to move himself around, because you will look away from him for one second and he will go tumbling down the stairs before anyone can stop him.”

“He would probably cry less after falling down stairs than he’s crying now…” Gasping and covering her mouth after she realized she had just said her thought out loud, Lucina nearly ran into the back of Maribelle’s legs when the older woman stopped walking to turn and glare at the little girl. “I didn’t mean to say that. That was not a nice thing.”

Her brother, still being quiet, wrapped his arms around her and gave her a hug as she stood, eyes wide and mouth covered. He must have whispered something to his sister, because she relaxed a little bit, dropping her hands to show that she was beginning to smile a bit. It wasn’t enough to make Maribelle forgive what she had just heard, but it was enough to get her to start walking again, talking as she did. “I cannot believe the rude manners you have, growing up in such a nice family. Then again, what should I have expected when you have a father like Chrom? He may act like a gentleman in public, but when he isn’t in the eye of the people, he sure can be—“

“Maribelle, I suggest you stop.” Standing at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed over his chest and toe tapping on the hardwood floor, Chrom looked up at the woman who was leading the children down to the main floor. “I came over here to see what my kids might be doing up there, and I didn’t need to hear you badmouthing me, especially not in front of them. What have I ever done wrong to you to deserve that sort of thing?”

She sighed, giving a small shrug of one shoulder. “Nothing, nothing, I was simply reprimanding your daughter for speaking to me so rudely. My apologies that it came at the expense of your good character.”

“I’m sure Lucina didn’t say anything rude to you, and if she did, I’d hope she has the decency to tell me what she said so that she can get properly punished for it.” The little girl gave a small pout at the sound of that, before hanging her head in defeat and repeating, almost word-for-word, what she had said before. Rather than getting upset about it, Chrom grinned at what he heard. “That’s brilliant, Lucy. I always knew you were a smart kid, but you’re definitely right. He would cry less if he fell down the stairs.”

“Excuse me! I can hear you applauding her for what she said, you know!” Getting to the bottom of the stairs and pushing past Chrom to get on her way, Maribelle huffed and readjusted the still-whining child in her arms. “And I’m sure that Brady heard it too, and I’m supposed to let your rude child play with him? The sacrifices I must make to be a decent houseguest, I suppose.”

Chrom, mentally asking himself how that sort of thing had any effect on one’s standing as a good houseguest, did have one point that he raised out loud. “Er, I get it that you think your kid is something great, because that’s a thing all parents do, but he’s not even a year old. Even if he did hear what was said, it doesn’t matter to him.”

“It does too matter to him. He has very sensitive feelings and your rude daughter cut deeply into them with that comment!” She was bending over to set her son down on the floor to see if he’d calm down with realizing that he was going to be able to move wherever he pleased, and once his pudgy hands and legs met the floor he stopped crying, quickly getting himself situated so that he could crawl around. “Look, I now have to let him move as he chooses, just so that he doesn’t feel so hurt from what he heard.”

“You don’t have to do anything, so don’t try and guilt me or Lucina for your decisions.” While Chrom gave the little girl in question a high-five for her comment, Inigo was stepping out from behind his sister and dropping down to his own knees, so that he could be on a similar level to the child that was now starting to crawl around in the entryway to the house. “And before you even think about it,” the man added, looking down at the two boys on the floor, “don’t dare say anything about how my other kid is being a bad influence here. It was, after all, completely your idea to put your son on the floor. Mine just joined him.”

Maribelle hesitated for a second, as she was going to make a comment on that situation, but ultimately decided that it wasn’t worth it. Seeing that she wasn’t going to argue further, Chrom took Lucina by the hand, telling her that he was going to let her say her thing to everyone else so that they could agree with her, and they were off to whatever other room the gathering for the day was in. That left the blonde standing there, watching the older boy lead her little one around like he was some sort of small animal that needed training. It made her simultaneously happy and angry to watch—happy in that her baby was making a friend, angry in that he was being treated like he wasn’t smart enough to know where to go himself. But she didn’t say anything about it, because at the end of the day, there was no real problem with the two boys interacting the way they were.

Not at that moment, anyway, and not for the moments following. But once a sufficient amount of time had passed, which she was sure wasn’t more than half an hour, she put an end to the fun and playing, picking Brady up while he was mid-crawl. This led to him scrunching his face and starting to whine, as well as Inigo getting up off his hands and knees and looking down at the floor like he had done something wrong. “This is nothing to do with you,” she explained, smiling at the boy even though he couldn’t see what she was doing. “It’s more to do with other, grown-up things. Like how a young child should only get so much floor time with no restrictions.”

“But he wants to play still…” Inigo, without moving his head, looked up at Maribelle and saw her smile, which caused him to start smiling as well. “But if his mom says no, she’s gotta be right. Gotta be.”

“That’s correct. I think I like you more than your smart-mouthed sister.” Her smile grew larger, which in turn caused his to do the same. “Oh, you seem to like the flattering comments. I really do believe I like you more. When it comes time for Brady to get to play some more, I’ll certainly be asking you to be his playmate.” Watching as Inigo gave a small jump in happiness at that news, she wished she had anything more to say, but her focus was quickly drifting from the older boy she was talking to and moving towards the child she held in her hands that was trying his hardest to get out of her grasp. She looked between her baby and the other boy for a moment, before a sliver of an idea began to form, one that she instantly discarded and chose to react to by holding her son close to her chest and go find somewhere else to be that wasn’t the entryway to the house.

The small footsteps that she heard echoing behind her clued her in to the fact that her decision to leave wasn’t made alone. “So, when’s it time to play more?” Inigo asked, keeping pace with her as best as he could. “Can it be time now? I like playing with him, lots more than playing with Lucy. He doesn’t tell me what to do.”

“That would be because he can’t talk, and even if he could, he would have the manners to not boss his friend around. He would be a civilized child, not someone rude like that sister of yours is.” Hearing the boy laugh, Maribelle stopped walking forward to turn and see him following her, covering his mouth with one hand to try and stifle his laughter. She resumed talking once she was walking again, poking her head into the living room to see if anyone was in there and finding it empty. “It seems you find my insulting your sister funny. Care to explain why that is?”

He ceased his laughter enough to mumble something she couldn’t quite make out, but she figured it was some simple child logic along the lines of “we both dislike my sister” or something similar. She was going to ask him to repeat himself with his mouth unobstructed, but then she saw that they were entering the large dining area of the house, and with everyone else who was present sitting around in there, maybe asking the child to repeat himself then wasn’t the best of ideas. Not when there were so many people turned to see them as they were coming in, mostly due to the fact that there was a whining child with them. “Well, looks like our discussion time is over,” Chrom said with a chuckle as he got up from his chair and approached the newcomers, holding out an arm to hug Inigo when the boy ran to his side. “At least, until that kid calms down, anyway.”

“He’ll calm down soon enough. Don’t let my son distract you and everyone else from whatever business you were handling.” The smile that had been on Maribelle’s face faded slightly, but as soon as Chrom was headed back to his chair, she perked up again. “What kind of business are you dealing with today, anyway? It’s not like actually doing any work is an option for anyone.”

Lissa, her head resting on her hand, elbow propped up on the table, sighed deeply when she heard the question and snorted when Maribelle finished her statement. “We’re talking about all sorts of stuff. You know, things that happened while you were off being a good mommy to your kid that you let wake me up.”

“You needed to be awake anyway, so I see no problems here,” Maribelle retorted, earning herself another snort from Lissa. “Excuse me, but it is very true. Everyone else was awake and about, so you should have been to. If anything, you should be thanking us for our considerate actions.”

“I can’t believe I’m about to say these words, but she’s right.” Sitting back in his chair, Chrom pulled his kid up into his lap so that Inigo could be part of the conversation too (much like, in the chair next to them, Olivia was sitting with Lucina on her lap). “Lissa, if Maribelle hadn’t let her son cry, you would still be asleep, and therefore you wouldn’t have been down here when we finally got to talk to Vaike and have him explain what’s going on.”

“I know that, Chrom, but admitting Maribelle’s right is even harder for you than it is for me.” Playfully sticking her tongue out at her friend, Lissa straightened her back and laid her arm down from where it was propped up. “Like, way harder. I’m not supposed to give in and say she’s right no matter what.”

“Wait, you got to talk to that ruffian?” By ignoring whatever it was Lissa had just said, Maribelle hoped that she’d get to know exactly what was going on as soon as she could. “I must know the details of that conversation. He kept dear Lissa awake all night with worry, you know, and as her best friend I need to know what to do to punish him for such actions.”

Everyone took a second to look between themselves, no one knowing what to say. Chrom’s eyes lingered on Lissa, who had quickly gone back to resting her head on her hand, while Frederick looked from the siblings over to his wife. But it was Lon’qu, getting up from his chair with a look of disgust on his face, who decided to speak next. “The fool got himself trapped in the mountains. Not like it really matters, he’s a waste of space anyway.”

“Did he say the mountains?” In the resulting chaos that stemmed from how Lon’qu had answered, Maribelle’s question was ignored, as everyone else was too busy focusing only on the man who was getting up and walking away from the table with no other words. It wasn’t until after he was walking out of the room that she got the answer she was looking for, a small nod of the head coming from Olivia. “Oh my goodness, how did he manage that one? I knew Vaike was never the brightest man, but the mountains in a snowstorm? He must be freezing cold up there!”

“Don’t give that fake sort of concern you’re expressing right now.” His voice stern like usual, Frederick shook his head at her, before motioning to the seat next to where he was so that she could sit down, which she did. Once she was comfortable—and once she had handed off the child she had been holding to the only other person who wanted to hold him—she was treated to an explanation of what information everyone had of the situation. “Now, as far as we can tell, he’s fine. Trapped in the mountains on the Ferox border during a historic storm, sure, but fine.”

She opened her mouth to question further, but Lissa spoke and answered exactly what she was about to ask before she even got the chance. “And he’s up there with another woman! Sure, he’s there because she asked him to help her out, but still! He’s there with her instead of here with us, and I don’t like that very much at all.” She gave a small pout and a sniffle. “Worst part is, no one’s gonna be able to get up there to rescue him until after Christmas, which means I don’t get to spend the holiday with him and whatever surprise it was he wanted to give me.”

Chrom stiffened up at the word “surprise”, and his eyes visibly widened. “Er, Lissa, now isn’t the time to be getting worried about him doing anything with that other woman, you hear? I am almost positive that he’s not going to interact with her more than he has to.”

“Which might be a lot,” she replied, sniffling again. “When he comes back, I might not have a boyfriend anymore and I’ll be so brokenhearted about it that I might cry forever.”

There was something to how Lissa had said that, something about her tone or her actions that accompanied her words, that made Maribelle feel a bit off about the situation at hand. In her mind, something wasn’t adding up, but she wasn’t sure what, so she asked another question: “What makes you think that he will just leave you because of something like this? We all know how dedicated to you he is, so a week in the mountains with another woman should not really be that big of a deal.”

“His dedication should most definitely be noted here, as he is utterly smitten with you, Lissa. Besides, I cannot see him ever wanting to leave someone like you for someone like Sully.” Trying to be helpful, Frederick gave his input, only half-heartedly though as he was somewhat distracted by the child he had sitting on his legs. “I do not believe there is anything to worry about here, in all honesty.”

“But there is and we all know it.” Giving a long, drawn-out sigh, Lissa looked across the table to where Olivia was seated and gave her a small smile. “You agree with me, right Olivia? You know that there’s something to worry about here, and if you were in my shoes and it was my brother in the mountains with some other woman that he totally shouldn’t be with, you’d be worried about him leaving you too, right?”

Olivia’s face lit up in a fiery blush and she moved her mouth to speak, no words or sounds coming out. This went on for close to a minute, before she gave up and buried her face in the back of Lucina’s head, the little girl giggling as she became an object for her mom to hide behind. “That was an uncalled for move, Lissa,” Chrom scolded, shaking a finger at his sister. “You know as well as anyone that Olivia doesn’t handle being put on the spot very well, and especially not in regards to silly questions like that one.”

“It wasn’t a silly question, okay? It was really important, and I bet she would be worried sick if you were away for the holidays because you went off and got yourself stranded somewhere with another woman.” Huffing, Lissa’s gaze narrowed as she turned to look at her brother. “Don’t you try to make me feel bad for being so worried about all of this, please. I’m seriously just trying to keep a calm head about the fact that he’s not going to be here because he’s ‘accidentally’ with someone else, and I’m totally failing at it.”

It was then, hearing how Lissa said that, that Maribelle realized what was going on. She hadn’t been present for the first part of what was running through her head (but she had been told before bed the previous night the exact details), so there may have been some incorrectness in her realization, but at that point, she didn’t care if she was really right or not. She just needed to do something about what she saw was going to happen. Standing up as quietly and unnoticeably as she could, she made her way out to the stairs and up to the bedroom without anyone verbally noticing that she was doing anything, and once she was in the room she closed the door behind her; thankfully, the item she needed to make what little plan she had come up with work was sitting on the edge of the bed. Although it wasn’t her phone, she knew it as well as her own, and she knew that the number of the woman whose name had been mentioned was somewhere within it.

Making the phone call wasn’t the most well-thought idea she’d ever had in her life, but Maribelle wasn’t going to let someone she somewhat knew, someone that her husband rather respected, be vilified for no reason. She didn’t expect the other line to be picked up, so when it went to voicemail she was fully prepared to leave the message that she spoke quickly and quietly. “Hello, this is Maribelle speaking. Sorry if I’m bothering you, but there is something you need to know, and if it is true and you are up in the mountains with Vaike, it’s really important that you learn this sooner rather than later. Something is amiss here, and I want you to know of it as it occurs. Please call back when you can.”

In retrospect, she could have chosen to be less vague with her wording and possibly have left her own number rather than expecting the woman to call Frederick’s phone back, but it was a rushed plan. One that she instantly became worried about, once she heard footsteps outside in the hallway. Had someone been spying on her to listen to whatever it was she was saying? It turned out that it wasn’t the case, because the steps were just Lon’qu moving around in his room and the floor echoing because of it, but it made her wary of doing anything else sneakily like she just had. Next time she made a move to call someone in such a manner, she thought to herself, she really needed to discuss it with someone else first to make sure it wasn’t simply an impulse move.

When she got back downstairs and to the dining room, the setting had changed drastically from when she had been in there just moments before. Chrom and Lissa were still seated where they had been before, but they were the only ones in their same places. Frederick was standing between them, arms crossed over his chest as he listened to them discussing something that she could only assume was still on the same topic as before. He was able to be there in that position only because he had made good use of one of the toys brought inside the day before, and had placed Brady inside the plastic bouncer that she had made sure to bring for him so he could have contained fun. The two older children, enthralled with their younger companion, were crowding around him and watching as he bounced and played with his toys, and to supervise the three, Olivia was sitting there watching them, joy in her eyes where shock and embarrassment had been before.

Coming up behind the chair Lissa was sitting in to poke her head into the conversation, Maribelle would most likely have spoken if she hadn’t become instantly interested in what she was hearing. She may have known the ins and outs of the police force, thanks to listening to Frederick drone on and on about it on a regular basis, but listening to the talk about what to do in a situation like the one the force was now in, with two officers missing and the chief and his right-hand man both stuck at home, was something different. As a bonus, watching as Chrom became more and more distressed and started gripping the edge of the table was a fun sight, especially when coupled with some of the things that were being said. He did end up relaxing a bit when the topic changed from the state of the force to the annual Christmas party coming up on the night before the holiday, although he was still clearly tense just hearing about all the planning that still needed to be done.

“But, as I am quite sure you are aware,” Frederick said, after rattling off a list that involved all the planning and preparations for that party, “we have all the time in the world today to get some of this taken care of. So, rather than sitting around doing nothing with our snow day, why don’t we get on that? It will make the next several days less stressful in terms of getting things sorted for that.”

Chrom let his shoulders drop and took a deep breath, smiling as he did. “Why not? We can always call everyone else who would need to know what’s going on, and this will make things easier when we’re worrying about how to get ourselves out of here to get to work tomorrow. After all, why worry about a party then?”

Maribelle pulled a chair closer to the action and sat down in it, doing as Lissa had and holding her head in her hands with her elbows on the stone edge of the table, just settling in for a long day of party plans and other topics of conversation. But every time she heard the people who were trapped somewhere else get brought up, her stomach sank a little bit as she worried how her message had been received—or if anyone else would ever find out she’d done such a thing and left the message in the first place.


	5. Getting Heated

To say that the first thirty-six hours of being stranded in the house in the mountains was fun would be a large lie, but keeping positive about the situation was the only way that Vaike could think of coping with the landslide of terrible things that had happened since the avalanche that trapped him there in the first place. First it was the fact that the avalanche even occurred, then it was that there wouldn’t be any rescuing happening for a week, and now, as he sat in the dark living room shivering as if he was outside in the snowy cold, it was that the heat in the house seemed to have shut off on its own. He had been woken up by the fact that everything felt a lot colder than it had been when he went to sleep earlier that night, and when he was awake and his teeth were chattering from how bone-chilling cold the house had gotten, he wasn’t sure what needed to be done. This wasn’t his place, this wasn’t somewhere that he knew how to fix everything in some way when it broke.

His first reaction was to want to wake Sully up and see what she thought needed to be done. She had bundled herself up under a couple of blankets before she fell asleep on the couch (where she claimed she was only sleeping because she didn’t want to make things weird by sleeping in someone else’s bed), and since she hadn’t been woken up by the drastic change in the air temperature, waking her up seemed like it would just make matters worse. But she was the one who had the contact information for the homeowners, who would be able to tell them what to do in case of the heat cutting out. He had to wake her up, didn’t he?

Fumbling for his phone as a light source, he stood up from the chair he had been calling his bed and tried to figure out where things were in the house to maybe find a source to the problem. After locating his phone on the counter in the kitchen—which was not where he had left it in the first place, not that he recalled—he turned on its flashlight and shone the beam around the little room to see if anything stuck out to him. “Think, Vaike, think,” he said to himself, face scrunching in his attempt at useful thought, “if you were a heat switch, where would ya hide yourself? Not in the kitchen, not in the main room, not in that stupid bedroom we ain’t sleepin’ in.” With the hand not holding his phone, he clutched the side of his head. “It’s gotta be outside. Gotta be out there.”

When he found one of the main room’s light switches he contemplated turning it on for a split second, but whenever he’d make motions towards turning it on, he would remember that doing that would most likely wake Sully up, and he had already told himself he wasn’t going to disturb her. “Can’t be buggin’ her tonight, not after what happened last night with my phone and all that. She deserves her sleep, although her sleep is gettin' in the way of the Vaike figurin’ out what’s wrong with this house!”’

Despite his insistence that he not turn the light on, he ended up attempting to do it anyway, just to find that the switch seemed to be broken, even though it had been working up to that point. A flicker of an idea came to him, and he went to the fridge in the kitchen and opened it, to find that it was not turned on, solidifying that idea as the most likely truth. The house just didn’t have any power, explaining the lack of heat and lights. But how was he supposed to fix a power issue, in the middle of a desolate winter wasteland in the mountains, when he didn’t have the first clue of how to fix anything of that sort? He was a man of the police force, not a man with experience as an electrician!

The light on his phone dimmed and faded to nothing, leaving him standing in the dark of a house he didn’t know. “Why’s it gotta be me here dealin’ with this?” he asked, leaning up against the fridge as he did. “There are a million reasons why the Vaike ain’t the guy to be dealin’ with anything like this, yet here I am, and I ain’t got any ideas of how to fix things!” He turned his phone on again, seeing what ungodly hour of the morning it was, and he thought to maybe call for someone who might be able to talk him through figuring out how to restore power to the house, but he ultimately decided against that course of action because no one else deserved to suffer through this crisis with him.

“Bet if Chrom was here, he’d be fixin’ it faster than anything. That man’s always on top of everythin’, especially things that this guy here can’t get taken care of on his own.” Shivering a bit as the cold caught up to him once more, Vaike shut the light off on his phone again and carefully walked back to the chair he had been sleeping in, sitting down and burying his hands in his face once he was comfortable. “This is just makin’ the whole situation suck more than it did to start, and that was pretty bad already.”

“Do you ever shut up?” There was a rustling of blankets, followed by the distinct sound of a pillow flying through the air, which brushed over the top of Vaike’s head as it passed by him. He uncovered his face and saw, in the dim light the windows were letting in, that there was a figure sitting up on the couch, one that was quickly realizing how cold the air around her was. “Damn, what happened in here? You get too toasty and decide to turn the heat off? Shouldn’t you have bothered to consider that I wouldn’t like that? What the hell, first you talk so much you wake me up, and then it turns out you’ve turned the heat off?”

“Ain’t my fault you can’t sleep through anything more than a l’il noise, and it wasn’t me who turned the heat off. Power’s out in this place.” Expecting a snappish response to him claiming innocence in what had happened, Vaike was caught off-guard when Sully instead groaned and pulled her blankets up a bit closer to her face. “What, you ain’t liking what you hear? C’mon, don’t just groan at me and call that a good answer.”

“It’s not that, dumbass. I was warned about this happening, sort of, and I can’t believe I forgot to do anything about it.” Her groaning only getting louder, she stood up and, after stretching a bit, walked over to the table where they both had set their jackets when they had first gotten settled into the place. “The owners told me something about the generator needing to be shut off every once in a while so that this didn’t happen. Pretty sure they did, anyway. Was kind of pissed to the point of not paying attention when they spoke.”

He got up and followed her, reaching her side as she was finishing getting her arms in her jacket’s sleeves, the insignia of the Ylisse police force prominent on the side he stood beside, even though he couldn’t see it. “So you’re tellin’ me that this was gonna happen, and now that it’s happened we’ve just gotta deal with it?”

“No, no, I know where the generator’s located. That’s a perk of having spent some time up here not in a wintery hell, knowing where things are. I’ll just run outside into the damn dark of night, fix things, and we’ll be set for the next day or two.” Sully shrugged, bending down to start putting her shoes on. “You can just go lay back down and I expect to hear your loud snoring when I’m done. No use in us both being awake for this.”

“Not a chance. For once, it looks like someone else’ll be teachin’ Teach something!” With a laugh, he reached for his own jacket, but she punched his leg as he did, causing him to instead use that hand to rub at the sore spot. “Hey, what gives? I said you’ll be showin’ me, not that you can’t do it.”

“And I said you can go back to sleep. I can handle this sort of thing by myself, and I don’t need any sort of man helping me out.” Finishing getting her shoes on, she stood back up and saw that he was looking at her with a shocked expression upon his face, to which she sighed and shook her head. “It’s not happening, Vaike. You’ll just hold me up longer than you already have, anyway.” Before he could get another word out, she was grabbing a flashlight out of some drawer nearby and headed out the front door to the house, a blast of bitter cold filling the house when she left.

He stood motionless for a few seconds, listening to the sound of footsteps in the snow outside the door before he decided to do as she had said and just go back to sleep. But no sooner had he lifted a foot to walk bad to the chair did he hear what sounded like someone falling into a large snowdrift, which was immediately followed by Sully screaming for someone to come help her—something that she never did. As fast as he could, he got his shoes and jacket on and was running out the door, being met with piles of snow that were easily as tall as he was in one direction, with the other direction showing a neat line of footprints that abruptly cut off several feet in the distance. “Where are ya?” he yelled, listening for the response that was to come. “Didja fall into the snow, or didja change your mind about showin’ ol’ Vaike how to get power back?”

“I f-f-fell into the snow, you idiot! Didn’t realize th-that there wasn’t solid g-ground under my feet!” Her hand poking out through the snow, Vaike saw where she was now hidden and followed her footsteps to get to her, his own steps dwarfing hers. Once he reached her spot, he looked down at her and waved, which did not help matters in regards to her attitude. Her cheeks nearly as red as her hair, she tried to thrust her hand upwards a bit more, but in the process caused the snow to sink more beneath her feet. Before she could fall any further, he was grabbing her hand tightly in his own and pulling her up with brute strength, bringing at least her upper half above the snow in record time. “D-don’t be so rough with me!” she snapped, grabbing his arm with her other hand and assisting herself out of the snow. “Could have damn well t-taken my arm out of its socket.”

“It was either that or lettin’ ya become a person popsicle, and I couldn’t let that happen to ya.” Back on the confirmed solid snow, she started brushing the powder off of herself, before grumbling about what he had just said. “Oh, I’m sorry, did you want to be stuck in the snow forever? I’d have a mighty hard time explainin’ to Chrom and everyone what happened t’ya, but I’m sure I’d manage. After all, the Vaike’s pretty great at gettin' his point across eventually, ‘specially when he’d have evidence like a frozen person to help him.”

“I’ve already asked this once tonight, but do you ever shut up? You’re always b-bragging and boasting and it’s on my damn nerves.” Teeth chattering, Sully looked to where she had fallen and then past it to the corner of the house, before turning her head completely to see Vaike looking at her with downcast eyes. “Okay, really? Don’t start getting upset with me here. I didn’t ask for this.”

“Neither did I, but I ain’t the one who keeps gettin' rude ‘bout things, even though it’s much worse for me bein’ here than it is for you.” He blinked a few times and she sighed, her attention and focus going back to how she was going to get where she had intended to go. “You’re just mad that I had to come out here anyway to help ya out, aren’t ya?”

“I’m n-not mad about anything except falling in the damn snow pile. Just do me a favor and don’t s-s-say anything else until we’re back inside and not out in the cold!” She was shivering harder than he ever had been sitting inside, and he only felt remotely sorry for her for being so cold, but whenever he tried to bring himself to actually feel bad for her, he’d remember that she was being rude to him for seemingly no reason. So he did as she demanded and remained silent, even when she nearly fell into the snow once more as she carefully made her way around the corner of the house, him following her every step in case she needed him. At times, she’d look back and there would be an expression of sheer anger on her face, most likely a result of him being outside with her in the first place, but at other times she would check to see if he was still there and seem relieved that he was still following.

The generator for the house was located under an awning on the back of the house, right past the window that Vaike could only guess was the one located in the bathroom, as it wasn’t caked in snow like some of the other windows were. The machine had been protected from the elements fairly well thanks to its location, and so getting it turned back on after its self-imposed cooldown period was an easy thing to do, one that took less time to complete than it had taken for either of them to put their snow gear on. Once it was whirring and functioning, the task became traversing back through the snow to the front door to the house, which, thanks to this experience, Vaike now knew that it was not located on the _front_ of the house, but rather the side. A useless fact in the long run, but it was something that made him be thankful that it wasn’t actually around front when it came time to get back inside the house.

After shaking the snow off of themselves and locking the door tight behind them once back inside, the air already warmer than it had been when they left, they were back to sleeping on their unconventional beds, because even with the heater working the bedroom was far too cold for them to be sleeping in. Falling back asleep with ease, Vaike was honestly surprised when he woke up again and found the room to be illuminated with sunlight, having expected something else to have happened in the night. Rubbing his eyes to remove any last remnants of sleep, he took a quick moment to check and see what Sully was up to, before realizing that she wasn’t still sleeping on the couch. Her blankets were neatly folded and it looked like she was long gone. “Huh, bet she’s out lookin’ at the horse again,” he said, standing up and heading over to the connecting door to the stable.

But the distracting scent of burnt toast caught his nose, and his stomach grumbled, reminding him that he should eat something before doing any searching for his companion. Cooking was never his strong suit, but he knew enough about how to work appliances to know how to make himself some toast that wasn’t burnt to a crisp like whatever had been cooked before was. Once he had the bread in the toaster, he went to the door and opened it, poking his head outside and calling for Sully; the silence he got in return was enough to let him know she wasn’t out there, so he closed the door and scratched his head. The bread popped from the toaster, nicely browned and completely edible, not long after that, so his search was halted once more as he made sure to eat. After the last crumbs were in his mouth and the delicious taste of the simple meal was done being savored, he was back to searching for where she possibly could have gotten herself off to.

The keys to his truck were still on the counter, which meant that she hadn’t tried hijacking his vehicle to leave, so she was either out on the grounds on foot, or she was somewhere in the house. Checking the bedroom, which was still as icy cold as ever, he found no trace of her, but he did find the dresser belonging to the couple who lived in the house, and so he rummaged through it for a bit, looking at all the clean clothes that made him wish he had something to wear that wasn’t the outfit he’d come up into the mountains in. Something about that made him become worried that he wasn’t looking presentable (although, being stuck in a mountain cabin, he didn’t need to look his best), and after running his hands through his fairly oily hair, he decided that he was going to take advantage of the amenities of the house and take a nice, warm shower.

Finding no place where spare towels were stored, he made the decision to just use whatever ones they had hanging around in the bathroom itself, just like he liked to do whenever he was staying at any house that wasn’t his own. Opening the bathroom door, it should have hit him that he wasn’t meant to be in there at the moment when the air was sticky with steam and there was the sound of water actively running, but he didn’t pay it any mind and began undressing, enjoying the feel of the heated air on his newly-bare skin. Leaving the water running in the shower was a weird thing, he thought, but Sully was a weird woman and she would probably do something like that to generate some extra heat, as a last gift to him before she disappeared forever.

The sound of something dropping in the shower caught him by surprise, and he pulled his arms in front of him in a defensive position, before creeping closer to the curtain on the shower that was pulled tightly closed. “I didn’t know this place was haunted, but no matter. The Vaike ain’t scared of any ghosts or things like that.” As he cautiously reached for the curtain, clearly showing that he might be a bit scared of the paranormal, something else dropped, which only made him move faster—until he was ripping the curtain aside to see a water-obscured, nude body standing before him. “Oh, you’re not a ghost…”

“Get. Out. Now.” Her arms quickly covering every part of her that she didn’t want him seeing, and her face turned into the water to hide her beet-red face, Sully didn’t seem even slightly understanding about Vaike’s misunderstanding. He stepped back, eyes wide but not actually looking at her, and she repeated her three words in a more fierce tone, which only made him back out of the room faster, closing the door in front of him before he realized that he was still without his clothing, and he couldn’t exactly reopen the door to get something to cover himself with.

That meant that, until she was done, he was stuck sitting around a house that wasn’t his own without any sort of clothes on. She made quick work of finishing her shower, as evidenced by the water turning off, but she was slow to open the door to let him back in. When she did, though, she was still undressed, wrapped up only in a towel, her red hair laying flat on her head as it was heavy with water. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he started, but she shushed him and motioned for him to join her in the bathroom. “Wait, but you’re in there. Don’t ya want me to, well, wait until you’re actually done?”

“I’m not going to be looking at you while you’re showering, don’t worry. And you most likely got as much of an eyeful of me as you’ll ever get, so I’d say we’re on good enough terms for you to come in and take your damn shower while I finish drying off.” She was looking anywhere but at him, making sure to turn her head so that she simply did not see any inch of him as he hopped into the shower, closing the curtain and turning the water back on as fast as he could. “Why the hell did you come in here, anyway? Couldn’t you tell I was doing something?”

His answer came after a few minutes of standing under the hot water, letting the steam and heat envelop his body in a cocoon of warmth. “Uh, honestly, couldn’t tell at all. Thought ya were long gone, and it never crossed my mind that you’d just be in here showerin’.” He laughed, catching some of the water in his mouth as he did, which caused him to cough and sputter a bit. On the other side of the curtain, Sully laughed as well, but he wasn’t able to see what she was doing so he assumed she was just laughing at his stupidity and his misfortune. “Hey, y’know what, the Vaike got scared you were gone and he needed to clear his mind with a nice shower. Guess it was good you were in here already. One problem solved.”

“Yeah, my ‘disappearance’ was a real problem.” There was a rustling of fabric on the other side of the curtain, which he assumed meant that she was getting dressed, and probably about to leave him to take his shower in peace. “You can stop masking your real issues with fake ones anytime now, and I’d love it if you’d just get to it. I’ve been bracing myself for you talking non-stop about that damn girlfriend of yours for two days now.”

“You want me talkin’ about Lissa?” He closed his eyes and let the water run over his face for a second, as he heard Sully give a groan and say that she did, indeed, want to hear that. “I’unno, talkin’ about her would just make ya hate me more than ya already do, and I’m not quite sure I wanna make that happen. We’re still stuck here for days, remember? Can’t have you hatin’ me for not shuttin’ up ‘bout my lovely Lissa, even though you asked for me to talk about her.”

“If I wanted to hate you for anything, it would be walking in on me while I showered, you idiot,” she snapped, throwing something at the curtain that caused an echo in the shower. “But I figured, since I was so damn rude about you talking about her before, I should tell you that you’re allowed to talk about her. Must be hard, being here without her and with me instead. Bet you wish she was here instead.”

Although she wasn’t going to be able to see him doing it, he shook his head rapidly, his hair flicking water everywhere. “No way! I’d never wanna see her trapped in a place like this! I’d rather someone else be here, while ol’ Vaike got to be at Chrom’s place and spendin’ time gettin' to know the family he’s plannin’ on joinin’ here soon.” Just like that, he froze in place, thoughts flooding his mind of what he had been planning for Christmas morning. “Or, well, the family he was plannin’ on joinin’. No idea when that’s gonna happen anymore.”

“You’re seriously not going to go through with it, just because you can’t do it as a gift to her on Christmas? That’s the dumbest thing I think I’ve ever heard you say, and after having known you as long as I have, I’ve heard you say a hell of a lot of dumb things.” Sully was playing with the bathroom door, evidenced by the way the hinges were creaking with every motion. “If you love her so much, shouldn’t you asking her to marry you be the same no matter when it happens? Or is there something else to the situation?”

Still standing completely still, he blinked slowly a few times as he thought about the truth to the romantic situation that he was in. Sure, he really did love Lissa, but him being with her hadn’t ever been his choice. It had been Chrom who had set them up, saying that he would really enjoy it if one of his old friends was the man that his sister spent her life with—and without any sort of delay Vaike had bought into that line of thinking, telling himself that he was doing not just himself a good thing in the field of romance, but that he was doing a huge favor for Chrom. Had there been romantic feelings before Chrom had gotten involved? Not really, because until that point, until he had sat the two down and told them that getting into a relationship was the best thing for them, all Vaike had really ever thought about in regards to Lissa was how she was his friend’s younger sister, and that she was a decent person.

Of course, being genuinely asked to get involved with someone and being open to the suggestion made for true love to sprout, but that love hadn’t been there to start. And while he was sure that there were times Lissa asked herself if she was still in love with him, he never had to ask himself about her. He knew that, whenever his mind got sidetracked from the situation at hand, it was going to thoughts about her and how much she meant to him, and how she was just going to be the woman by his side for the rest of his days. But her mind, who was to say what her idle thoughts were about? “It’s complicated,” he said, tilting his head down to let water course down the back of his neck as he rubbed at one of his shoulders. “I actually ain’t that sure if she’d accept any proposal if it weren’t a big deal with lots ‘a meanin’ to it.”

“Huh, never thought I’d hear you get real with me like that. It’s too bad that there’s not a damn thing I can do to help you out, but thanks for explaining what’s up. I’ll be sure to watch my mouth next time I bring up your situation.” Sarcasm clear in her voice, Sully could be heard stepping out of the bathroom, finished with drying off, and she made sure to slam the door behind her. This left him standing there, under the steaming water, questioning what point there had been in her asking about that if she wasn’t going to do anything to help him figure things out. There wasn’t much he could do about it, not while he was still in the shower and she was long gone, and by the time he was done and dried off, dressed back in those same clothes he’d been wearing before, he had already let it leave his mind that she had even asked about the situation regarding the proposal.

He, however, hadn’t forgotten in the slightest that Sully had given him permission to talk about Lissa around her, and he made sure to thank her for the “right” to exercise that ability as soon as he got the chance. It was a bit later in the day, the sun already beginning to fall from its peak in the sky, and they were sitting out in the stable, her brushing the horse while he watched. “So, remember how ya said I could talk ‘bout Lissa?” he asked, to which she groaned before reluctantly nodding. “I just wanted to say, thanks for that. It’s been hard the past two days, not sayin’ much of anythin’ about her.”

“That’s lovely. You’re welcome, I guess.” Based on the tone she had taken, it was clear that Sully was already regretting ever saying that he could carry on conversations with her on that topic, and he fell silent for a moment, hoping that she’d add something that would reassure him that he wasn’t getting on her nerves. No such luck. “Just don’t overdo it like everything else you open your damn mouth about. Seriously don’t need to hear you droning on and on like a lovesick dog. Been through that enough with some of our coworkers.”

“Coworkers? Meanin’ like Chrom and Frederick, yeah?” Vaike laughed, and Sully smiled, chuckling to herself a bit. “Remember when Chrom came back from that summit meeting thing and said he’d met a girl? We joked ‘bout that for weeks, ‘til he let us meet her and she was everything he’d said.” He leaned back a bit, up against the cold stable wall, hearing the wind whipping around outside. “Don’t know how a knockout of a lady like her would stick around a guy like Chrom, but hey, the Vaike don’t judge.”

“His money from being police chief probably helps a lot.” Sully continued on with her brushing of the horse’s mane for a minute or two longer, before putting the brush up and approaching Vaike, sitting beside him, much to his surprise. “But we all knew that Chrom handles pretty ladies with his lower half, not with his head. Damn fool, taking advantage of some Feroxi woman than the ones we work with that have always been so in love with him.”

“Way you’re talkin’, it sounds like you’re one of those ladies.” Without thinking, Vaike put his hand on Sully’s leg, which she pushed off forcefully. “Well, it does. C’mon, tell me, didja have a bit of a crush on Chrom before he went off the market?”

She pretended to spit to the side. “Hell no! Chrom’s always been a friend, ever since we were little. It’d be dumb for me to have ever seen him as anything but a pal.”

“I hear ya on that one.” Again trying to get his hand resting on her leg, Vaike was denied once more when she threatened to spit on him. He recoiled and kept his hand to himself from then on. “’cept me seein’ him as anythin’ but a pal and a friendly rival would be a bit weird, y’know? I ain’t got the romantic excuse like you coulda had.”

After mentally deciphering the meaning of that sentence, Sully leaned forward, putting her elbows on her legs and holding her head in her hands. “Yeah, I know. Must be great, not always being questioned if you like the authority figures above your head. Figured that damn business would be over once they were all not single anymore, but guess it didn’t stop at all. Not like you meant anything by it, of course, but still.”

“Hey, I ain’t gonna ask if you liked either of the others. Still not sure how a guy like Frederick got anyone to want to spend time with him outside of work, but the Vaike would wager some real money that Chrom had somethin’ to do with it.” He mimed rubbing dollar bills in between his fingers, but Sully wasn’t paying attention to his actions. “Guess you’re not down for talkin’ bad about him, huh? I know you and him are close and all that.”

She sighed. “You’re right about what you’re saying, though, and it sucks because I’d love to talk with you about this all day. I’d love to vent out all my frustrations about that dumb broad he chose to marry, but at the end of the day, she’s not worth my emotions.” For a second, he could have sworn that she was about to get personal, and once she was back to talking it was clear that it was the case. “I’ve gotten a hell of a lot better at holding in my thoughts about her, especially since whenever I’m having a training day with Frederick he’s always going on about how she’s such a great member of society, and how she’s a perfect person to be practicing law, and how she’s the best mother he could ever want for his child, and it just makes me sick. I’d kill to get serious, stern, worried for the state of the police force Frederick back, because this version of him just doesn’t cut it.”

“Eh, I think this him that’s focused on his family is a lot better than the old one who asked everyone if they were wearing clean socks.” Vaike scratched the back of his head, his hair still very slightly damp from earlier. “Besides, he ain’t that bad if you don’t get him started on talkin’ about his family. Nothin’ like Chrom and how he’s just always ready to discuss family matters with ya.”

“That’s odd, because I’ve never had Chrom come up to me and talk about his wife and kids without being prompted. Might have something to do with the fact that your ass is entrenched in that family’s business.” Sighing again, Sully sat back up and stretched her arms before her, cracking her knuckles as she did. “Must be nice, having such an in with the chief’s personal life.”

“Yeah, I’d say it nice, but it really ain’t. I can only imagine what kinds of rude things they’ve been sayin’ ‘bout me there at their house since I’m not there. Probably got all sorts of conversations goin’, like how Teach ain’t good at showin’ people squat, or about how he’s up here when he’s s’posed to be down there, and it’s bound to be an ugly mess.” After a moment to think about what he’d just said, he shook his head a few times and rocked himself back and forth. “That’s probably what’s happenin’, and if you think that’s nice, then I guess it’s nice. But it’s not nice, it’s just not.”

She set her hands in her lap for a moment before reaching into her pants pocket and pulling out her phone, turning on the screen to see a complete lack of messages or calls. “It’s nice, because at least you know you’ve got some damn people in this world that care about you. Must be great to have a family who’s got your back, even if they’re not your real family.” He fell silent, unsure of how to respond to what she’d said, and after they’d sat there for nearly twenty minutes in almost silence (the horse would occasionally make noises to break the awkward pause), she stood up, brushing the dirt and hay off of herself as she did. “This has been really lovely, Vaike, but I’m going back in. You did good, not actually mentioning your girlfriend this whole time. Keep it up.”

He watched her walk back to the house, before he got himself up and chased her in. “Wait, hey, I didn’t mean anythin’ by what I said there! Thought we were havin’ a good conversation, but I didn’t know you were upset by somethin’ I said!” By the time he got to the door she had already disappeared somewhere in the house, and he gave a long sigh, stepping inside as well. “C’mon, Sully, you know the Vaike don’t aim to insult his friends when they’re talkin’!” When she didn’t respond, he figured that once again she had ran off to escape him, but he slapped himself on the forehead for even entertaining that thought. She hadn’t left before and she didn’t leave this time, so she was clearly somewhere in the house. As he searched, looking high and low in case she had chosen to hide in plain sight, a feeling that there was more to what she had said than her actual words came to him, but he wasn’t entirely sure what else there could have been. She was mad that he had some sort of a family to call his own, and that was enough to get her to lose her cool and storm inside.

When he approached the closed door to the bedroom, he heard her voice on the other side, although he couldn’t make out whatever it was that she was saying. He put his hand on the doorknob, the cold metal unsettling to his touch, but he didn’t turn it, just thinking about how Sully would react if he walked in on her doing anything for the second time that day. She must have just been in the room talking herself through her fit of anger, and he had no reason to interrupt her for that. However, when she came out close to an hour later, her phone in her hand and dried tears staining her cheeks, he couldn’t help but want to ask what was going on; when he did, she proceeded to throw her phone at him and told him to leave her alone for a few hours. He was quick to return her device to her possession, but not before sneaking a peek at her call history—and seeing that the number marked as Frederick’s was the last one that she had called, from not quite an hour before.


	6. Visitors, Cheaters, and Unlikely Bedmates

The twenty-third of December was one of the hardest days of the year in Lissa’s mind, if only because it was the birthday of her older, deceased sister. While it had been a good handful of years since Emmeryn had died, it still stung when she’d wake up on that morning to find every piece of news media coming from inside Ylisstol to be talking about honoring the kind soul lost too soon. No one was really sure how Emmeryn had died, nor were they sure they wanted to find out, but the impact her death had on the lives of everyone that Lissa knew was not something that would be easily forgotten. And so, as they had done every year since her death, the family made sure to spend that day with lots of prayers and stories about their dearly departed sister.

It was a strange day, even with that in mind, but the strangeness didn’t come into effect until midday, when the older two kids were asking their usual questions about who their Aunt Emmeryn was, and where she was, and why she never came home for Christmas. Their target for the questioning was anyone within earshot, having already been told by Chrom and Olivia both that they weren’t going to get answer from them, and it turned out that Lissa was the only one willing to sit there and answer all of those hard questions. Talking about what little she knew in regards to the death was hard, but seeing the kids’ faces light up with understanding before darkening in sadness let her know that her efforts on enlightening their minds wasn’t in vain.

In the middle of answering a question about what Emmeryn had been like, the entire conversation was interrupted by a piercing cry, followed by Maribelle entering the room, holding a clearly upset Brady in her arms. “You just had to bring him in here while he was crying, huh?” she teasingly asked, losing the interest of her niece and nephew as they clamored to get to see the baby. “We were talking about how great Emm was before you showed up. Wanna join in on the fun?”

“No, Lissa, I do not find speaking of your deceased sister fun, nor have I ever. I came in here to ask you a question of my own, however.” Bouncing her son in her arms, Maribelle stood and faced Lissa as she decided whether or not she wanted to answer her friend’s question, before shrugging and asking for it to be asked. “You haven’t seen Frederick around, have you? He was going to take me out shopping for something to wear tomorrow night to the party, since the roads are now drivable, but I cannot seem to find him anywhere.”

“You came in here with your fussy baby to ask me if I’m keeping tabs on your husband for you? Because that’s totally a thing I do.” Laughing, Lissa quickly went from taking the question in with humor to staring blankly at Maribelle, who was staring right back. “I, uh, don’t think I have seen him, honestly. Him or Chrom, now that I think about it. They weren’t supposed to work today, were they? It’s Emm’s birthday, and Chrom never works on her birthday…”

“I’m taking that as a negative answer and that simply worries me. What if they went somewhere and didn’t bother to let anyone else know it? I think I might just be worried sick if I don’t find out where Frederick is, and quick!” Maribelle held Brady a bit closer to her chest as he finally stopped crying, which only interested the other kids in him more, both of them begging to be allowed to play with him. Rather than continuing toting him around, she obliged to their demands, laying him down on the floor so that he could move wherever he pleased. As the two older kids focused on him, she sat down next to Lissa and shook her head. “I cannot believe that he would do this to me. What if this is his way of leaving me?”

Lissa laughed, leaning her head on her friend’s shoulder. “He’d never leave you, Maribelle! I’m sure something came up and he and Chrom just had to step out for a bit. No big deal.”

“No big deal? Lissa, sweetie, I cannot fault you for not knowing what it’s like to be in my shoes, but when you have a child with someone, not knowing their current location at all times becomes a very big deal! Why, he could be out with some cheap woman off the street right now, and I wouldn’t know it!” Giving a fake sniffle, Maribelle brushed her bangs out of her face and leaned her own head on top of Lissa’s. “I just hope that, wherever he is, he’s happy with what he has.”

“Oh, the over-dramatic one is in here.” His voice as flat and stern as ever, Lon’qu poked his head into the room, locking eyes with Lissa as he did, as both ladies scrambled to not be leaning on one another. “Should have figured about as much. You, Lissa, do you know where your brother is?”

Face scrunching at being referred to in such a way, she quickly replied, “Nope, no idea. Wasn’t aware that I’m supposed to be in charge of where he is at all times or something like that.” Her words came out a lot ruder than she had intended, evidenced by the way Lon’qu turned and walked off without another word, and once he was out of sight she raised a finger and let her mouth hang open for a second, before looking at Maribelle, who was sharing a very similar expression. “Did that just happen?”

“I cannot believe he had the nerve to refer to me as the _over-dramatic_ one! Simply because our first meeting happened at a horrid time doesn’t mean he has the right to know me with such an untrue title!” Her hand curling into a fist, Maribelle shook it at the doorway, as if Lon’qu was still standing there. “He will learn to respect me, if it’s the only thing I teach that sad excuse of a man!”

“Whoa, calm down Maribelle, he’s just got some problems with all women.” The words didn’t stop her friend from still shaking that fist in anger, so Lissa leaned over and tugged her friend’s arm down to get her to stop. “Teaching him to respect the both of us would definitely be the better choice, though, I think. I’d like to see him talk to me and not be mean or asking about Chrom or anything like that.”

Raising her voice, as well as trying to resist the act of having her arm pushed down, Maribelle wasn’t so quick to give in to Lissa’s desire for kindness. “No, Lissa dear, I am going to teach him to respect me as the high-class woman that I am! No man gets to disrespect someone as pleasant as me with such vulgar nicknames and get away with it!”

“Oh, hey, sounds like Maribelle’s here.” The voice was a new one, belonging to a tall fellow with pale hair that looked like it hadn’t been straightened in days, and when he entered the room both women’s attention was drawn to him, them both forgetting that they had been arguing about Lon’qu at the sight of this new man. He squinted an eye as he sized-up the duo, before relaxing and laughing. “Looks like you two have been curious about where important men in your lives have gotten themselves off to, haven’t you?”

“How can you tell that about us just with a look?” Lissa asked, as Maribelle gave a soft hmph and nodded. “I mean, we were curious, but still! Robin, how do you know these things?”

“Call it intuition, I guess. Makes a man into a fine investigator.” Laughing, Robin came a bit closer to the two ladies, clearly thinking about what he was going to say next. “I’m not here to ask you if either of you know where Chrom or Frederick are, so don’t worry. In fact, me being here is part of why they’re gone.”

“That sounds like you forced their hand into leaving,” Maribelle said, eyes going wide. “I knew you to be a ruthless man when it came to investigating crimes, but to convince two loving men to leave their wives and children behind always seemed as if it was an action beneath you!”

“I, er, didn’t force them to leave. They’re headed to the airport to pick some people up. I was going to go, but I figured that second-in-command should get to go instead.” Rubbing his arm as he thought more, Robin saw that the answer was good enough for Lissa, but definitely was not for Maribelle. “Okay, I don’t know what else there really is for me to say here in explanation. He’s not leaving you, don’t worry. They should be back soon enough. A couple of officers on duty from a different region have had their flight home cancelled, and Chrom decided it would be best to let them spend some time with the Ylisse force before their new flight home tomorrow.”

“And so my dearest Frederick had to go with to get them? Something isn’t adding up here, Robin, and I must say, it is unlike you to tell shady stories.” Now narrowing her eyes, Maribelle scoffed, “All this time I’ve respected you, and this is how you choose to repay me and my blind faith, with a story of lies! How does Olivia feel, knowing that her husband has gone to pick up ‘officers’ who are ‘stranded’ here?”

“She feels pretty great about the decision, actually, because that’s actually what he’s doing.” Robin crossed his arms over his chest and waited for the next nonsense rebuttal, which never came as Lissa whispered something into her friend’s ear, something he wasn’t able to hear but it was enough to get Maribelle to visibly relax and admit that she may have been overreacting to the situation. “I’d say you certainly were. But enough about them, they should be back soon enough if all’s going well with those officers. What are you two doing tomorrow night, in regards to the Christmas party at the station?”

Lissa cast her eyes to the floor, giving a small shrug. “Nothing at all. I don’t work there and I don’t have a date who does, so looks like I’ll be staying home and watching Brady for Maribelle, which is totally okay.”

“And I’ll be attending the party, naturally.” Pursing her lips together, Maribelle then added, “Unless, of course, Frederick does not return from this officer-getting task, and then I too will have no date. Even still, right now I have nothing to wear to the event.”

“It’s not a formal activity, so you don’t need to worry so much about what you’re wearing,” Robin replied with a chuckle, “but I can say that, looking at the plans that were made yesterday, everything’s going to go off without a hitch.” He then focused on Lissa, who was still staring down at the floor. “I’ve heard enough about what’s happened to Vaike to know why you won’t be going. Sucks that he’s not going to be back for a few more days, but at least now I know that the kids will be in good hands.”

“The kids? What do you mea—oh.” Looking up to turn her head quickly to look at where Lucina, Inigo, and Brady were all located, Lissa began counting on her fingers what she thought he was getting at. “I don’t think I can watch so many children on my own,” she finally admitted, dropping her hands into her lap. “I mean, those three are fine, but add others and it might just be a mess. Sorry, Robin.”

“It’s not just going to be you here tomorrow night, so no worries. Olivia’s opting out of the party for some last-minute Christmas gift arranging, and I can’t get a straight answer out of that Lon’qu fellow on whether he’s attending or not, so I assume you three would be able to handle five children on your own.” His face broke out into a grin, at the expense of Lissa realizing what that meant. “This’ll be the first time in years that I’ll be able to go out and have a night with my wife, and I’m ecstatic. The girls will be on their best-behavior for you, while us partygoers have ourselves a fantastic time.”

“Did you hear that, Lissa? The partygoers will have a fantastic time,” Maribelle repeated, nudging her friend in the side. “And you will have a lovely time staying here watching my precious son for me, won’t you?”

She gave a reluctant nod, but her voice was chipper and clear. “Sure will. He’ll be the easy one to watch. He’s just a baby, he doesn’t really do much. It’s the other four that are the problem.” Lowering her voice to barely above a whisper, she added, “A huge problem that I want no part of.”

“Well, if you’re so sure that watching Brady will be easy, then I see noth—“ She was cut off by the very child she was speaking of screaming, which caused her to jump from her seat to check on whatever he had gotten himself into. This left Lissa sitting there, giving a long sigh as she waited for her friend to come back.

“Sorry that we didn’t clear any of this with you before today. Chrom said that if you weren’t going to be able to come with us, you should be more than ready to take care of the kids for me, and I guess he never got around to asking you.” Robin gave a hollow laugh, at which Lissa sighed again. “Hey, don’t be so down about this. Sure it sucks that you aren’t coming with, but you’ll have a good time here, I’m positive.”

“Thanks for the reassurance, but I’m not quite sure how I can manage to have any fun when I’m going to be in charge of five kids on the night before Christmas.” She looked at Robin and shook her head, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. “I just wanted this year’s holidays to be good, you know? And now I’m spending them in an even worse way than I spent last year’s, and I didn’t think that was possible.”

About to ask her what she was referring to, Robin’s attention was diverted to the sound of a car horn honking, which made him tense up, before pointing towards the doorway. “I think that’s my cue to get going,” he hastily said, before almost running out of the room, hollering about how he was on his way.

“What got him out of here in such a hurry?” Maribelle asked, coming back to her seat with her son in her arms. “It wasn’t anything to do with me, was it? I would certainly hope not, as I did nothing wrong, but who knows with the men that we know. You do one thing and they take it the complete wrong way.”

“No, nothing to do with you. I think Chrom got home and needed him for something, but even then that doesn’t make any sense.” Now standing up on her own, Lissa turned to hover over where Maribelle was sitting, putting her hands on her hips as she did. “But let me tell you, I think I want to take back what I said about your baby being the easy kid to watch. All he ever does is cry, and if I’m going to be listening to kids fight all night, I really don’t want to have to deal with that too.”

Maribelle’s lips were pressed in a straight line, as she looked between Lissa and the child in her arms. “He doesn’t only cry, and you know it. He is capable of many other things, and you’ve never once complained about his crying when you’ve watched him before, so what difference does other kids being around make?”

“It makes a whole lot of difference, actually. But since I got roped into watching Robin’s kids tomorrow night, looks like I don’t have a choice in any of this.” She took in a deep breath, exhaling slowly to try and calm herself down. “I just wish that I was getting to go to this party tomorrow rather than being stuck here. Why did Vaike have to choose _now_ to get trapped in the mountains?”

“I do not believe he chose anything, but then again, I never have been sure what his motives about anything are.” Eyes widening, Maribelle seemed to have a spark of realization, and she reacted to it by trying to push Brady into Lissa’s arms, but as Lissa wasn’t anywhere prepared to be holding a child, it didn’t quite work, leaving Maribelle just awkwardly holding her child before her friend as said friend looked down at him, confusion in her eyes. “Take him for a moment, will you? There is something I need to do right now, and holding him will only be a distraction.”

“I’m sorry, but I’ll be holding him enough tomorrow night to make up for it.” Despite the protests that she simply needed to hold the kid for a few minutes, Lissa turned and started to make her way out of the room. “Seriously, Maribelle, I’m not his mom. You can do what you need to do and hold him at the same time.” She was so focused on replying to her friend that she didn’t pay attention to who was coming into the room at the same time she was leaving, and she very nearly ran into a still-searching Lon’qu, who glared at her when he saw that she missed touching him by mere inches.

“Watch where you’re walking next time,” he said, backing away from her. “I would rather you not touch me.” She gave him a half-hearted apology and walked around where he stood, because she didn’t want to hear more of his rude words at that moment. If Maribelle had thought there was something she needed to do, then Lissa had multiple things that needed to happen, and she wasn’t going to let a man distract her from what she was going to do.

At least, that was the plan, and it was quickly derailed when she was starting to head up the stairs to her room and the front door came flying open, followed by words spoken by someone she’d never heard before in her life: “Wow, so _this_ is the house belonging to the police chief of Ylisse! I was expecting something a lot less roomy, honestly. I’m impressed!” She halted all forward progress and found herself sitting down on the stair above the one she’d been standing on, watching as two strangers came into the house, alongside Chrom, Frederick, and Robin. The man who had spoken before, with his thick jacket and bright white hair, nudged the woman he had come inside with, as she stared almost obsessively at Robin. “Hey, hey, can you believe that we’re actually here? This is a real dream come true! For today, we get to pretend we’re royalty!”

“Being in the house of the police chief isn’t the same as being royalty,” the woman responded, not taking her eyes off of Robin as she spoke. “However, if you want to pretend, by all means, go right ahead. I don’t mind.”

“Er, do you think you could stop staring at me?” Backing away slowly, Robin began to be followed by the woman as she continued just looking at him, the corners of her mouth upturned into a smile that Lissa could barely see from where she was sitting. When this woman didn’t knock off her behavior, and no one seemed to be doing anything about it, the blonde gave a heavy sigh and stood up, bounding down the few stairs she had climbed to insert herself into the situation—which made Chrom visibly nervous when she started speaking to the two newcomers.

“Just who do you two think you are?” she asked, earning herself the attention of the pair, which came at the price of the woman glaring down Lissa for breaking her away from her obsessive staring. “And better yet, why do you think it’s okay for you to just come into this house and start getting weird?”

“Lissa, stay out of this,” Chrom cautioned, but he was pushed aside by the white-haired man, who burst out into laughter as he turned to face the interrupting woman. “Oh gods, please don’t let this have been a bad idea…”

Still laughing, the man introduced himself and his companion to Lissa. “My name’s Henry, and the dour one there is Tharja. Renegade police officers from Plegia, _bitch_.”

“You’re not supposed to mention the ‘renegade’ part, idiot.” Her eyes still narrowed in a harsh glare focused on Lissa, Tharja spoke with a soft voice that held no punches in terms of rude inflections. “That will give our kind saviors a bad idea about what we’re up to.”

“What we’re up to? You mean seeing what it’s like in other places so we can leave Plegia under our terms, right? Think everyone deserves to know that plan.” Clutching his chest as he laughed, Henry almost doubled over from how hilarious he found himself. “Oh man, when we eventually get back and put in our papers, it’ll easily be the most fun thing I’ve ever done in my life!”

“And this is why I was against getting these two in the first place.” Speaking up over the laughter, Frederick did not seem pleased with the situation at all. “Are you aware that we’ve assisted two soon-to-be defectors in their plans to leave their positions? Chrom, think of the consequences this will have in regards to relations of the Plegian and Ylissean police forces.”

Chrom thought for a second, before shrugging. “Those relations have never exactly been the greatest, Frederick, especially not after what their old chief let happen to Emm while she was there on diplomatic business. Us assisting two people who want a better life for themselves is perfectly fine.”

Lissa’s heart sank when she heard her sister’s name be mentioned, and she saw the pained look on Chrom’s face when he had said it; for this, of all the days, to be the one where things pertaining to her were brought up seemed too perfect to be coincidental. Why else would there be two Plegian officers standing in the entryway to the house on Emmeryn’s birthday, aside from some underhanded plan? She went to bring that up, but was hushed by her brother, who figured she was going to say something on that matter and wanted to quash that speculation before it started. This allowed for Tharja to speak, having gone back to staring at Robin like a lovesick dog. “Talking about our old chief reminds me, someone here has a message for them from daddy.”

His eyes going wide with horror, Robin’s mouth came open but no words came out, despite him standing there with full intentions of saying something in response. “Now, now, this is no time for those sorts of jokes, Tharja,” Henry said with a mischievous laugh, “especially not when we’re clearly the enemies here. We’ve walked right into the lion’s den and I don’t know if we’re getting out of this one alive today. Not that I’d mind if we didn’t. Always have wanted to see the inside of a body bag!”

“It’s not a joke.” Stepping closer to the clearly flustered Robin (which was not a state that Lissa had ever seen him in before), Tharja reached out to him, running her fingers along his jawline. “Express words from our chief of police to you, regarding your lack of coming home for the holidays. Perhaps you could call your father sometime?” Her voice, even though she was speaking of someone needing to contact a relative, was incredibly seductive, an intent made all the clearer by the way she was stepping closer and closer to the speechless man.

“That’s enough of that. Separate, right now.” Chrom didn’t step in to break the two apart, but his stern words were enough to get Tharja to take a step back and place both of her hands before her, taking up an innocent pose while Robin continued looking lost and slack-jawed as he took in what just happened. “I get it that my lead investigator has ties to your organization, but couldn’t you have presented that information to him in some other way? Maybe by a friendly message given across the room? All you’ve done is make him uncomfortable and made everyone else feel mighty awkward for watching that.”

“No, she’s…right. I should call him sometime.” Finally gaining the ability to form his thoughts into words, Robin ran a hand through his hair, letting it linger on the back of his head. “Wasn’t aware he’d send officers after me to tell me to do that.”

“He didn’t send us. I took this one upon myself, since Ylisse was a stop on our trip anyway.” Now looking down at the floor as if she was embarrassed for her actions, Tharja scuffed her foot on the wood beneath her. “I would do anything to get to speak to my soul mate, even if it means abandoning post and defecting from my line of work.”

The use of the term “soul mate” made several of the listeners shrink back in shock, unsure of how to even approach that. Henry was still laughing, placing a hand on his companion’s shoulder as he tried to collect himself to no avail, while Frederick and Chrom were exchanging looks that clearly expressed the shared concern they both now had for opening the doors to these two strangers. But it was Lissa, standing in the middle of a situation she hadn’t needed to be in, that was most unsure of what she was supposed to do. Her heart was telling her to butt into the conversation and mention the sacred day that it was, but her mind was telling her to just back away and find something else to do. Without a moment’s hesitation, she ran up the stairs once more, actually making it up to the room she was staying in and slamming the door behind her.

The tears started falling faster than she knew how to deal with them, and for several minutes she stood on the other side of the closed door, gasping for air as she became a crying mess for some reason she’d hate having to explain to anyone, barring Chrom and possibly Maribelle. Not only was her holiday season already terrible due to her boyfriend being somewhere inaccessible, but now she had to deal with people who had ties to the people who had allowed for her sister to die? How much worse could things possibly get?

* * *

Having now been trapped in the cabin for three full days, there was very little left to do that didn’t involve idle conversation or sitting and taking care of the horse, which left Sully feeling rather restless as she tried to pass the time _somehow_. She wasn’t much of one for cleaning and trite housekeeping activities, but she’d spent a fair number of hours cleaning the house that was acting as her prison (although, to be fair, the messes she was cleaning were caused by her and Vaike being there, so she wasn’t going above and beyond in being helpful), which did nothing more than make her wish she was back home with her own list of chores and whatnot she was ignoring. It may have passed the time, but it wasn’t doing much for helping her put an end to her boredom.

At least, however, she was doing something productive with her time, unlike Vaike, who seemed to just lounge around and occasionally nap while she was doing her cleaning and grumbling about it. Sometimes, if he wasn’t feeling like being a lazy bum in his chair, he’d throw on his jacket and go outside, where she’d hear his truck revving up for a few minutes, during which she assumed he was trying to get it uncovered from whatever mound of snow it was currently occupying. She didn’t bother asking him what he was doing out there, because when he’d come back in he’d always be somber and not willing to talk to her, which only fueled her curiosity more. What could be putting him into a sour mood just by being outside? Had some animal gotten itself wedged in his truck and died, leaving him to clean up its mess? Was there any damage to the vehicle?

Deep inside, she knew that nothing like that was going on, and that the culprit had something to do with the people he was missing back home. Why else would he be getting so upset while outside alone, if he wasn’t out there trying to get a call through to his girlfriend to see what she was doing without him? His behavior was making it all-too-clear what was going on, and she didn’t feel like doing anything about it—until she realized that, after three long days of being stuck in such close quarters with him, maybe trying to hear him out with his romantic problems would be a kind thing to do.

She posed the question of what was going on after his fourth excursion out into the snow that day, after he had taken off his jacket and was getting ready to flop back down in the chair he had claimed. “Vaike, can you tell me what’s bugging you?” she asked, trying to keep herself sounding friendly and not as rough as usual. He responded with a curt headshake, sitting down where he’d spent so much time of late, and leaning his head back as he closed his eyes. “Come on, just do it. I’m your damn friend, aren’t I?”

“Not today,” he finally said, having opened an eye to see her standing there watching him. At first she thought he was referring to her calling herself his friend, but then she realized it wasn’t about that, but rather him saying he couldn’t say what was wrong. “It’s just a bad day, and I wish Lissa’d answer her phone so the Vaike could comfort her when she’s probably hurtin’ pretty bad.”

“Maybe’s she not answering her phone because she just wants to spend the day alone? Or maybe today’s not as big of a deal as you’re making it out to be, which wouldn’t be that surprising, because who the hell still gets upset about someone this many years after they’ve died?” It wasn’t until she saw that Vaike had gone from maybe giving her advice a chance to ignoring her completely and trying to sleep that it hit her that she was saying all the wrong things. She knew that the day was going to still hurt anyone who cared (she personally didn’t really care, but then again she hadn’t known much about Emmeryn until after her death); in fact, she knew that Chrom had vowed that he would never work that day as long as he possibly could manage. It was a day of mourning, a day of remembering the life of someone who had meant a lot to certain people, and she had completely misspoken about it.

There really, really wasn’t anything that Sully could do at that point, barring finding a time machine and going back to stop herself from saying the wrong thing. She gave a long sigh, tapping her fingers on her leg as she did, and when she saw that there was no visible reaction from Vaike, she sighed again. “Just…leave a man alone right now, will ya?” he asked, barely moving his lips. “Need t’do some thinkin’ ‘bout things.”

She felt that she had to obey his wishes and give him the space he requested, although it meant that she was back to finding something to do to pass the time. Rather than doing what he’d do and go outside for some alone time, she grabbed her phone and went out into the stable, looking for the company of not the horse but someone who would inevitably be on the other end of a call. Her fingers were awfully quick at pulling up the contact information for the person she needed to talk to, remembering to hit the alternate number so that she wasn’t calling the wrong person, and within moments of stepping into the warm stable her phone was putting through the call she felt she needed to make.  
“I was thinking about calling you earlier today, but someone made it so I was unable to,” the person she was calling said upon answering, laughing as she spoke. “I would have figured that Lissa would be a good friend, but she instead snapped at me about me wanting her to hold my child. How rude of her!”

“Yeah, that’s what’s making her rude.” Leaning against the wall across from the horse, Sully prepared herself for explaining what was going on to Maribelle, who would most likely refute and argue with every point along the way. “She’s ignoring her boyfriend’s phone calls and he’s flipping out like the damn fool he is. You don’t think you can help him out and tell her to answer, do you?”

“Sadly, I’m nowhere near where she is right now, and bringing that up without prompting would seem mighty suspicious on my part.” When Maribelle laughed, the sound echoed through wherever it was she was currently, and it was followed by what sounded like a stranger loudly saying something that Sully couldn’t quite make out, but Maribelle could and dropped her voice when she continued on speaking. “My apologies, I’m out and about right now and apparently a dressing room is no place to camp out to hold important conversations. I wasn’t aware of that etiquette that needed to be followed.”

Now it was Sully’s turn to laugh, although hers was more of a single snort than anything loud. “Why’re you in a dressing room? Hell, the bathrooms in that town are everyone’s go-to spot when it comes to talking on the phone. Just go to one of those, do what everyone else does. No big deal.”

“Except that’s disgusting and I would never do such a thing. Public places like that are no places for a woman of class such as myself.” Her voice ticked upward in volume towards the end, which earned the door to whatever dressing room she was in getting banged on, presumably the attendant telling her to leave if she wasn’t using the facilities for their proper purpose. “But I _am_ trying things on!” she argued, banging on the door herself. “I have the maximum allotment of articles in here, and I will be trying each and every one of them on while I’m in here!”

“Did you grab things off the shelves just to get to talk to me? That’s a real classy move, and I’m flattered. Can’t say I’m interested in dating a married woman, or any woman, but thanks for the offer.” She was actually laughing now, just thinking about how Maribelle’s face must have been getting so red in frustration at that insinuation.

But if that was what was happening, her voice wasn’t any indicator of it. “I was not offering you anything of that sort, especially since I’m trying on things for the party tomorrow. I understand that it’s not a formal event, but any excuse to dress up on a night out is one I will be taking.” She seemed to set the phone down after that, leaving Sully to either hang up or continue listening to what was going on in the dressing room—and the redhead decided that at least listening to Maribelle talk to herself was more interesting than being alone in the silence of the stable. Hearing the rustling of fabric, combined with soft mutterings that couldn’t be understood, she knew that her friend (could she even consider Maribelle a friend?) was off in her own world of trying on clothes, but once the rustling stopped there were words to be heard. “Sully, dear, are you still there?” Maribelle asked, much quieter than she had been when she was holding the phone.

“Yeah, sure am. Do you want me to be? I can hang up and find something else to do if you want me to.” Something else would be impossible to find with all the things she’d already done, but she didn’t want Maribelle to know that. “It’s no damn problem at all if you need me off the phone.”

“Quit being so vulgar with the curses, will you? And no, I don’t need you off the phone at all. I want to talk to you about something.” Now she was picking her phone back up, her voice getting louder until it was back to how it had originally sounded. “Yes, it’s about your most favorite of housemates. No, I do not care if you’re tired of sparing thought towards him. You did call me to ask me to do something for him, after all, and now I’m going to ask why.”

“Why? Because he’s moping around this place since she won’t talk to him. He’ll get started on talking about her, which leads to him going outside in this frozen hellscape, which then turns into him getting hurt that she won’t answer him! It’s a vicious cycle and I’m so damn tired of it!” She huffed, looking towards the door back into the house. “I’m tired of it, and I wish there was something we could do to help him out. Which is why I came to you and asked you to tell Lissa to get her head out of her ass and answer him.”

Maribelle hesitated in responding, and her first sentence was simply repeating something she’d already expressed, buying her more time to think about what she wanted to say. “I asked you to not be so vulgar, so please at least try to accommodate my fucking wishes. As for helping him…” She was still hesitating, clearly unsure of what she should say, but after swallowing down loudly enough that it picked up through the phone, she went through with what she was going to say. “Maybe you could help him take his mind off of her? How, I don’t know, but if he isn’t thinking so much about her he won’t be so upset, right?”

“Yeah, like I’m going to be able to help him with that. He’s so head over heels in love with that woman that it would take some real force to get him to budge on that issue, and I doubt that I could even make a dent in it.” Again looking to the door, Sully gave a long sigh. “Guess it’s just going to continue this way, with him being lovesick over her and me…not knowing what the hell should be done about it.”

Possibly because of what had been said, or maybe because of how it was said, Maribelle gave an excited, almost girlish squeal, earning her another reprimand from the dressing room attendant. “I have an idea, and it will work out perfectly! You’ve just got to give in to your totally-obvious desires and convince Vaike to want to be with _you_!”

“W-what?” Nearly dropping her phone in shock at the suggestion, Sully’s first reaction was to turn her gaze at the door into a glare, followed by shaking her head rapidly. “I have no intentions of getting with that man, thank you very much. I know that it’s what everyone thinks is going to happen, but it’s not. I’m not becoming the ‘other’ woman in this situation, even though I know everyone thinks that’s my damn role!”

“Yes, but, it’s so obvious that it’s meant to happen! You wouldn’t be the other woman, anyway, as I’m positive that as soon as word broke that he was no longer with Lissa because he was with you, Lissa would make her move on her new target. I’ve explained this to you before. She’s interested in this Lon’qu fellow, and if we can work together to get Vaike out of her life and into yours, then she can be with her new love!” Every word was said gleefully, as if Maribelle was finding joy in suggesting breaking up her best friend’s relationship, and it didn’t sit right with Sully. Continuing to shake her head, she did what she felt needed to be done and put an end to that conversation right there, hanging up just to slump against the wall and really think about what she’d just heard.

She was sure that Maribelle was most likely upset at being hung up on like that, but what else was she supposed to have done? Arguing against that hair-brained plan wasn’t going to work, because in a battle of words the more manipulative woman would win, and Sully wasn’t known for her verbal manipulation skills. She had no interest in being a homewrecker, though, even though what Maribelle was saying didn’t sound so much like it was homewrecking as it was just doing someone a favor. The problem there was that she didn’t really know if that was the favor that needed to be done. Freeing Lissa from a relationship so she could get into a new one would do nothing but hurt Vaike, and after the past three days, if there was one thing Sully did not want to do, it was hurt him more than she already had by making him be up at the cabin in the first place.

Why did she care if he was hurting, anyway? It was a thought that hadn’t actually crossed her mind until right then, as she was telling herself that she wasn’t going to ruin what he had simply because someone suggested it to her. What made her actually care that Vaike was hurt and upset about the love of his life not talking to him? Up until they’d been in the truck together to come to the mountains, she’d only ever cared about him in regards to work; now she was worried for him because his relationship seemed to be in a rut, but where did this care come from? She closed her eyes and continued slumping down against the wall, her legs buckling underneath her and causing her to hit the hay-covered floor faster than she had expected. It didn’t bother her that she was now on the ground, because it meant that she could just sit there and think about what to do in this situation, letting her thoughts wander from what to do there to what to do about the rest of the time spent up in the mountains.

Regardless of what action was taken in this sticky romantic situation, she still had to figure out how she was going to pass the time over the next few days, before someone could come up and clear the road so they could get back home to their real lives. She knew that if they were back in Ylisstol where they belonged, she’d be at work and he’d most likely be spending the day comforting Lissa since it _was_ her dead sister’s birthday. Or would she still have found comfort in the arms of another man? Sully put a hand to the side of her head and tried to clear her mind of that thought; as far as was confirmed, Lissa was not trying to get with another guy, and so there was no reason to even think about that possibility.

Except, try as she might, she couldn’t get the thoughts to fully escape her. As she lay there, eyes closed with the smell of hay enveloping her, she couldn’t help but wonder what if that was actually the case, and what if there was an ounce of truth to what Maribelle had been telling her. Why else would that socialite of a woman be spending so much of her time talking to someone that she barely knew, if it wasn’t to be spreading the truth? But she didn’t want to entertain the notion that she was accidentally involved in some strange plot for one woman to cheat on her lover, she simply wanted to find something to think about that would help her pass the time.

In the back of her mind, she made note of the door opening and footsteps approaching her, but she didn’t pay it any attention until she felt someone hovering over her, the sound of breathing that wasn’t from a horse a newfound sound. “Uh, you okay down there? Need someone to help ya up, or can you do it yourself…?”

Her eyes flew open for her to see Vaike hovering over her, a grin on his face as he held a hand down to help her up with. “I can do it on my own, thanks,” she replied, before narrowing her eyes and sighing, giving in to his insistence (he hadn’t moved, but because he was standing over her, she wasn’t going to be getting up on her own) by taking his hand and pulling herself up with it. “Or not. Thanks for being a gentleman, I guess.”

“No problem there, Sully! It’s what a guy like the Vaike does, after all.” Once she was to her feet he backed off, wiping his hand on his pants all while still smiling at her. “Gotta work on my manners for when we get back home and I’ve gotta be kissin’ up to Chrom and everyone, y’know. Best way t’do that is by helpin’ you out.”

“How did you know I was laying on the damn ground, anyway?” Eyes still narrowed, she wasn’t going to take anything stupid as an answer, especially not with everything she had been out there thinking about. The last thing she needed was to have a strong reason for not going along with what Maribelle had been saying. “You got some magical mind powers or something? Cool mind tricks you’ve never let me know about before today? C’mon, there’s no way you knew I was out here otherwise.”

“Didn’t know you were on the ground, but where else would ya have been? House ain’t that big, and you ain’t gonna be hidin’ out in that frozen bedroom.” By the way her facial expression relaxed, she indicated that she had accepted that answer as a good one, and while that should have been reason for him to continue smiling, his grin faltered as he moved on to other thoughts that were separated from the current situation. “Did some thinkin’ while on the lookout for you. D’ya think she ain’t answering because she doesn’t want to talk to ol’ Vaike? Or maybe it’s because Chrom’s got her doin’ so many things that she just doesn’t have the time. But Chrom wouldn’t do that, no way.”

She watched as he completely lost the joyful smile he had been sporting, replaced with a longing look off into the distance, and she inwardly wished there was something she could do to help him. Outwardly, though, she did what she enjoyed doing most and said the first thing that came to mind to try and remove herself from the sappy conversation. “Chrom sure wouldn’t, not if he wants you and her to remain together. Which he’d be a dumbass to want anything but that, so stop worrying, will you? One of Chrom’s kids must have broken her phone or something so she just _can’t_ reply to you.”

“Yeah, that coulda happened…thanks for remindin’ me that there’s other options here besides her not likin’ me anymore.” He didn’t start smiling again; rather, Vaike’s attention was now on the horse whose stall they were standing right in front of, which was flicking its tail and giving soft neighs at the sight of the man. “Uh, can we get inside? I dunno if this animal is wantin’ to be friends, or if it’s wantin’ to charge at me, and I don’t want to stick around to find out.”

Sully gave a snorting laugh, walking up to the horse after to run her fingers through its mane. “It’s just judging you and your dramatics. If you’re so scared, get the hell back inside. I’ll be in there soon enough, even though me going in doesn’t matter.” He took one look at her unafraid interactions with the horse and backed away slowly, before turning and walking into the house like a normal person, leaving her there to laugh for a few moments until the weight of the entire situation fell on her. Never before had she been stuck in the middle of something like this, being the comforting friend to someone whose lover was off doing other things, and she wasn’t quite sure what she needed to do.

One thing was for certain: listening to Maribelle’s absurd suggestion to play the role of a homewrecker was not what was going to happen. That was the exact opposite of what needed to be done, and it was suggested on the assumption that there was some potential cheating happening in the first place. With all of their backgrounds being in dealing with the law, Sully assumed that Maribelle would have known about the whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing that they tried to follow, which made the suggestion even stranger to know about. If there was nothing fishy going on, there was no reason to break things up.

The rest of the evening went over like the ones before it, with relatively little conversation and almost nothing to do. Dinner was cooked and eaten, the kitchen was cleaned afterwards, and that was the extent of things that needed to be done. There were multiple attempts made to try and contact people back in town, all of which were ignored (minus one made to Chrom on accident—he answered his phone, talked for a few minutes to make sure the two were alive and well, and then left to go spend time with his family). And finally, after the house was dark and cold and there was absolutely nothing left that could be done, it was time to go to bed.

After three nights already having been spent sleeping on the couch, Sully was tired of the uncomfortable cushions and lack of real support that she was getting in her sleep, but she had accepted that there was nothing she could do about it. At least she wasn’t sleeping in the low-backed chair that Vaike had claimed that first day, because she knew she wouldn’t have been able to find as much comfort in that as he had. Or so she thought he had, anyway. “We’ve gotta do somethin’ about this sleepin’ arrangement thing,” he said, rustling around in the chair. “I can’t do another night sittin’ here. Mind if we switch where we’re sleepin, just for tonight?”

“Hell yeah I mind if we switch. I can barely get a good night’s sleep on this couch, I bet I won’t get any sleep at all in that chair.” She had been trying to lay down and get comfortable, but at the sound of his voice she had sat up to talk. “I’m not making that sacrifice, no way.”

“It’d be for one night, which ain’t that bad in the end. C’mon, I’ve been sleepin’ here for days, can’t ya be nice to the Vaike and let him have the couch for just a night?” She could hear him moving around more, clearly restless, and she sighed because he did have a point, that it would be for one night and one night only, and he had taken the worse place to sleep so that she wouldn’t have to. Well, that wasn’t exactly the reason he’d chosen the chair, she was sure of that, but it was the reason that came to her and inspired her to think of some solution so that neither of them had to experience that discomfort.

“Why should I make you sleep on the couch,” she finally said, having thought through exactly what words she was going to use, “when there’s a perfectly good bed in this house? It’s a damn icebox in that room, sure, but if we’re both in there and bundled up under all the blankets we can find—“

“Are you suggestin’ we share the bed? Are you crazy? Always knew you were an interestin’ one, but to offer sharin’ a bed with a guy who’s got a girl back home, that’s below you, ain’t it?” There was nothing but offended tones that she could hear in his voice, and it made her regret suggesting it. Clearly he wasn’t aware that there was a difference between sharing a bed and sleeping together, and just by mentioning one it obviously implied the other in his mind. However, after the initial bout of being offended, he calmed down to speak once more, logic finally permeating into his thick skull. “Well, sharin’ body heat under the covers would make it warmer in there, I guess.”

She was going to make a comment about how it wasn’t beneath her, because it wasn’t going to be anything more than friendly and for the better of them both, but once he seemed to realize that on his own she changed her mind on what to say. “Watch how you’re talking about doing this. ‘Sharing body heat’ makes it sound like we’re going to be doing something in that bed, which we sure as hell aren’t. Just sleeping in the same bed to keep warm and not wake up frozen, nothing more.”

“As long as word of this doesn’t get to anyone back home, I guess I can’t argue against it. Means we ain’t sleepin’ out here again, and that sounds good to the Vaike.” Even though it was darker than anything in that room, the moonlight coming in through the window not enough to really see with, she was sure he was giving her a thumbs-up with that. “Now let’s get to gettin’ in there ‘fore we end up sleepin’ out here again anyway.”

It was a suggestion that was taken straight to heart, and as fast as they could without hurting themselves, the two went into that freezing cold bedroom, using their phones to illuminate their way so that they could see what they were getting themselves into. Once they were under the thick blankets on the bed, the chill to the air wasn’t as noticeable, which would explain how the couple that lived in the house could survive sleeping in such a frigid place on the regular. Even still, Sully was sure that if she had made the move to come sleep in this bed alone, she wouldn’t have been able to say she wasn’t freezing under the blankets. There was something about there being another person in the bed with her, even if he was curled up on his own side, that just made things warmer.

She fell asleep to the sound of his muffled snoring, as well as the sounds of her own jumbled thoughts on situations she shouldn’t have been worrying about in the first place. When she woke up, after a night full of dreams that were wild and only making matters worse in regards to everything going on, the first thing she noticed was that she was a lot warmer than she had expected she’d be able to get in such a cold room. After blinking a few times to ensure she was awake, she went to stretch and get up, but an arm pinning her down caught her highly off guard, and her initial reaction was to turn her head in horror to see what was holding her in place. But when she saw it was a still-sleeping Vaike, who had decided at some point that he was going to cuddle her, she relaxed a little on the horror front, although she was now mentally processing what to do about this. Cuddling wasn’t an activity she’d anticipated when she suggested sharing the bed, and while it was doing wonders on keeping her warm, it wasn’t right. Everything in her mind was telling her to push him off and get him away from her, yet she didn’t take any action, instead choosing to remain lying there under his arm and the blankets.

There wasn’t any way to know if he was doing this intentionally or not, although she was sure that he wasn’t meaning to be cuddling her, but rather his girlfriend. This might just have been his way of coping with not being with her in a snowy and cold cabin, to cuddle up next to the woman he was trapped with, but he certainly didn’t mean anything by it. And if he did mean anything by it, it was going to be something friendly and considerate, nothing romantic at all. Sully closed her eyes tight and tried to tell herself to stop going back to the romantic implications of what he was doing, because there weren’t any—but try as she might, her mind kept falling back to thinking about how he could be unintentionally using her to cheat on his girlfriend, even though he was still so in love with her that there just wasn’t any way.

“Come on, just get him off so you can get up,” she muttered to herself, as she readied her arms to push his off of her, but she hesitated, ultimately deciding against doing it. She reopened her eyes and spent a few minutes looking him in the face, watching him to see if he was going to wake up on his own. With every breath he took, she saw his eyelids flutter slightly, the corners of his mouth upturned as if whatever dream he was in the middle of was a good one, and she couldn’t help but think that he was having good dreams because he was holding someone in his arms. That thought, rather than bringing her joy, left a sour taste in her mouth and she wanted to get him off of her even more then, simply because of thinking that he was comparing her to someone else in his dreams.

Why did she even care if he was using her as the physical manifestation of someone that he was dreaming about? He was his own man, and his kindness was keeping her warm, so why did it matter why he was cuddling her like he was? Again squeezing her eyes tight, she tried her hardest to tell herself to ignore the implications and instead appreciate that he was sharing his warmth with her, but she couldn’t manage to do it. Too much of her being was focused on the fact that he was cuddling her in place of someone else, and that made it impossible to focus on anything else. In the middle of this, she must have contorted her face into a displeased expression, because then she heard a sleepy voice say, “Oh, didn’t mean to get all up on ya overnight. Didn’t bug ya, did I?”

“No, you sure didn’t,” she replied, as he lifted his arm off of her and rolled back onto the side of the bed he had started on. “You didn’t have to stop, you know. I was appreciating not freezing my ass off, actually.” In the moments since he moved, she could already feel a stark temperature difference, especially in the spots where he’d been touching her. “Come back over here and keep doing that, damn it.”

“And get chewed out for cuddlin’ someone who ain’t Lissa? No thanks.” He gave a deep sigh, which blended almost flawlessly into a yawn. “Ol’ Vaike’s goin’ back to sleep. You do whatever you want, but no cuddlin’ allowed.”

After she could hear his snores once more, she sat up, shaking her head as she did. Why was he making it sound like she had asked to wake up with his arm around her? She had wanted that just as much as he had, but once it was gone she felt like she needed it again. What kind of nonsense was that, even though she only wanted it back because it was keeping her warm, as the teeth-chattering cold in the room was beginning to get to her. Standing up, goosebumps rising on her skin as she fully embraced the cold surrounding her, she turned to see him laying there, peacefully sleeping, arms wrapped around the blankets so that he could cuddle with something, and she had a moment of honestly wishing she was in the place of those blankets, held within those strong and warm arms.

“Oh my gods, I’m losing my mind,” she said, putting a hand on her forehead before deciding to get out of the room and find somewhere warmer to lounge around and kill time for the day. The stable was always a good place to try and sort her thoughts out, and after what she had woken up to, there was a lot more sorting that needed to be done. And the next time she spoke to a certain woman back in Ylisstol, she had a lot of things that needed to be said—and the non-romantic cuddles weren’t going to be something explicitly mentioned.


	7. A Night at the Station, Part One

A light dusting of snow covered everything as the cars began to arrive outside the police station, a small storm blowing in that no one was too worried about. Only a few inches were forecasted to fall, which didn’t put even the slightest damper on the plans for the Christmas party that evening, because as long as the roads remained clear, everyone would be able to get home to their families for the next day’s celebrations and presents. Having ridden over to the station together, there was a few moments of everyone shuffling out of the back of the van that Robin was driving, as there had been extra guests coming along with them for at least a few hours of the party.

“Not only did we get to spend time at the chief’s house, but we get to celebrate alongside his men as well? Normally I’m one for jokes, but this is no laughing matter!” Henry exclaimed as he climbed out of the van, pulling his giant coat around him a bit tighter as he did. “What an _ice_ surprise for this trip!”

“Too bad it’s not actually icy, or that pun would have been better delivered,” Tharja replied, already standing outside the van as she was the first to file out. “It’s just a little bit of snow. Would be lovely if we could curse it to go away, but we can’t all win. Besides, if not for the snow, I never would have gotten to spend time with Robin dearest.”

Coming around the van from the driver’s side, Robin held his hands up and shook his head. “Don’t call me that, please. I don’t get what your weird fascination with me is, but I’d rather you not have it. Or, at least, not make comments like that, especially not around everyone that’s here right now.”

“Like me.” An arm wrapped itself around Robin’s waist, and he was quickly pulled to be snuggled up right beside a peppy-looking woman with long hair that was collecting snow in it. “You know, the woman he married?”

“Marriage is just a social construct that can easily be ignored when I get the chance.” Her straight-lipped expression turning into the smallest of smirks, Tharja completely expected that other woman to get enraged at what she heard, and she was not surprised in the slightest when the woman charged at her, slipping on a patch of ice that had been obscured by snow and falling flat on her face.

“Now that’s an ice surprise, I’d say!” Laughing gleefully at successfully getting to make the pun, Henry grabbed Tharja’s arm and started heading her over towards the doors of the station, so that she couldn’t cause any more trouble outside than she had, which left everyone else who had ridden over together there to deal with the aftermath of what had just happened.

In the moments after falling, the woman had picked herself up off the ground and was brushing the snow off of her clothing, while Robin had come right to her side (avoiding the patch of ice that had caused her to fall) and grabbed her face to make sure she hadn’t busted it open. “Gods, Sumia, you need to learn to be more careful on cement,” he said, his investigation coming up with no marks to be worried about. “I get that she was being infuriating, but you didn’t need to rush at her.”

“I’m sorry, I just didn’t want to lose you to her, that’s all. I know I’m not the best at anything, and she probably is, and…” Sumia’s voice trailed off as she began sniffling and blubbering like a lost child, causing Robin to sigh and wrap her up in a hug. “I just wanted to make sure she knew not to mess with you.”

“I think she knew that without you getting yourself hurt. Now let’s get inside before anyone wonders what’s taking us all so long.” Together, they got about five steps before stopping, as Robin looked back to see the other two who were still getting out of the van. “You guys coming still or what? It shouldn’t take that long to get out of a vehicle.”

“Oh, we would have been out faster had things not been happening. Maribelle didn’t want to get herself involved in that mess.” Both feet down on the ground and holding his hand out to help his wife out of the back seat, Frederick gave a shooing wave towards Robin. “You get inside and don’t worry with waiting on us. I can assure you that Chrom most likely needs your help with something in there, so why leave him to struggle when there’s no reason for you to still be out here with us?”

Taking a moment to think about that, Robin nodded. “You got it. Just don’t decide you’re going to head back to the house without everyone else who rode over here together. I don’t think there’ll be enough room in Chrom’s car for everyone to ride home with him.”

“We won’t even entertain the notion of leaving without everyone else. Not after the preparations we made for this evening.” After watching Robin decide to heed the words and head inside, Sumia still very much wrapped in his arms, that was when Frederick felt a hand grabbing his own, and he looked to see the innocently-smiling face of Maribelle staring at him. “Oh, my love, you look fantastic tonight, especially in the natural light out here.”

“Thank you, so very much. But we both know that I would not look even close to this stunning if it weren’t for you sacrificing your time yesterday to take me out shopping, so thank you for allowing this to happen.” Kissing his hand before using it to get herself out of the van and onto the snowy ground, Maribelle beamed at her husband as he closed the van’s door behind them. “We’ll be the best-looking couple at this party, no arguments needed. Did you see what our companions were wearing?”

“Casual clothes, yes, because this is not a formal event.” He watched as her face turned from happy and excited to horrified, and so he shook his head once she was finally done being dramatic. “I’ve explained that many times now, Maribelle. Just because it has been a formal event in the past does not mean it’ll always be one. With the early cold snap we received this year, a formal event tonight would result in many rolled ankles and injuries caused by dress shoes on the ice.”

Her look of horror went from facing him to straight down to the ground, where she saw the tips of her toes poking out of her peep-toe heels she had bought specifically for the occasion. “Er, why didn’t you tell me about that yesterday while we were shopping? I’m sure I could have gone without buying heels for the evening…”

“By the time you had picked out a dress and were working on selecting shoes, I knew it was a lost cause and a waste of breath. You will not be falling tonight, however, not on my watch.” Without a second’s hesitation, he let go of her hand and grabbed her, getting her positioned in his arms bridal-style, to which she laughed and threw her head up against his arm. “See, there will be no falling done by you tonight. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Unless you fall while trying to be my noble knight,” she said, pressing her cheek into the sleeve of his jacket. “But I would certainly hope you have no intentions of that happening, holding me like this. I can’t even remember the last time you held me this close to your heart.” She broke into girlish giggles then, batting her eyes as she did, and he became clearly flustered, his face picking up a pale blush. “Oh, don’t get so flustered by me speaking about that. It _has_ been a long time since you carried me like this, though.”

“It wasn’t what you were saying that flustered me, but rather how you were saying it. Please try to tone down your absolute attractiveness, at least while around others.” Exhaling a bit in an attempt to calm himself and his blushing down, Frederick then started walking towards the doors to the station, still holding Maribelle in his arms until they were inside the building, where several of the people who had gathered for the party noticed that he was holding her the way he was, while she was laughing and saying small thingstrying to get him to blush more.

“Hey, it looks like truly chivalrous men still exist in this world,” Chrom said, once he saw the two. “Figures that Frederick would be one such man, but that’s no surprise. Glad to see you’ve put your wife before helping finish setting everything up.” To drive his point home, the blue-haired man gestured towards a long table of party refreshments that seemed to be only half arranged, with the only thing that looked properly placed being towers of pies. “I mean, it would be a shame if something had happened to her, but you were in charge of so much tonight and—“

“Like setting a fire in the fireplace and getting the drinks set out for everyone’s enjoyment.” Cutting off Chrom, which he apologized for with a small “sorry, sir” once he had finished saying his piece, Frederick made sure to get Maribelle back on her feet and out of his arms before setting off to do as he was supposed to. “I will start on the fire first, then to the drinks. I would assume that heat is more important than thirst.”

Watching as his friend started towards the pile of firewood next to the large fireplace in the room they were all in, Chrom shook his head. “Frederick, no, the fire isn’t what’s most important here. Drinks are!” But his words were falling on deaf ears, leaving him to stand there and shake his head. “Guess I’ll do the drinks myself, then. I mean, I had to bring the coolers of everything in on my own, so why not set it all up too?”

“I’ll help you out, Chrom. No worries.” Robin, having separated himself from being wrapped around Sumia, but still standing with her next to him so that she was blocking him from Tharja’s view, gave a small smile and nod at Chrom, who seemed happy to get that sort of response. “Besides, it’s my fault for not thinking that through better. We could have brought something in the back of the van, rather than you bringing it all in your car.”

Chrom came over to Robin and put a hand on his shoulder, before turning him to show him just how much stuff was sitting on that long table. “Would have appreciated that, you know. I don’t know why she felt that she needed to do it, but someone sure baked a lot of pies for the occasion.”

Hearing the word “pies” mentioned, Sumia pushed herself in between the two men, facing Chrom as she did. “Oh, you know me, I just love baking pies!” she said, running her fingers through her hair. “Especially when I know someone as wonderful as you will be enjoying them.” A cough from beside her, coming from Robin, caused her to sputter a little bit, before giving a sigh and correcting herself. “I mean, especially when I know people as wonderful as this police force will be enjoying them, since they’re for everyone. Especially you, Chrom.”

“What did I say about this sort of behavior?” Robin, clearing his throat once more, waited until Sumia gave up and stepped aside before he continued speaking. “Just because you want to impress him doesn’t mean you need to get so weird about it.” She hung her head in shame and gave an apology, but he didn’t buy into it. “I knew that taking this night to be together without the kids was a bad idea. We should have waited and gone somewhere where there wouldn’t be so many people as distractions.”

As she stood behind the three, listening to their conversation, Maribelle couldn’t help but look to her side to see Henry and Tharja standing there, having a conversation of their own that mostly consisted of the white-haired one telling jokes and the dark, dour one making creepy comments about Robin. She shuddered at one of the things Tharja admitted to wanting to do to the lead investigator, and that was her sign to go find somewhere else to stand while she waited for Frederick to get done setting the fire up. There had to be other guests at the party aside from the ones gathered right there, after all, and as the social queen she tried to hard to be, she needed to find them and talk to them.

On her way to one of the side offices to check and see if anyone was in there, she heard two voices she recognized as belonging to coworkers of Frederick’s, and so she looked around where she stood to see if she could find the people. It took taking a few more steps and looking around a corner to another gathering area, but she found the two people she overheard talking, and they seemed genuinely surprised at seeing such an overdressed woman approaching them, both waving at her with welcome smiles on their faces. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything over here,” she said, as she sat down on the couch that was across from the one they were on. “Don’t want to be too much of a burden on either of you tonight, so just say the word if I am.”

“I don’t ever think you’re a burden, Maribelle. Not even when everyone else says you’re being one.” She gave the speaker a big smile, and he froze, covering his mouth with a hand. “I didn’t say anything wrong there, did I? Sorry, sometimes my thoughts get muddled when I’m hungry, and I am definitely hungry.”

“If your intention was to show how nice of a guy you are, I don’t think you said anything wrong at all, Stahl!” Her mouth still wide in a smile, Maribelle took a second to think about the scene she had just left before speaking again. “Why are you hungry, with all of the food that’s here tonight? I swear, someone needs to lock Sumia out of the kitchen sometimes. She baked so many pies for the evening that they’re swimming in them out there.”

Dropping his hand, Stahl’s eyes went wide and he eagerly grabbed the arm of the person he’d been talking to before Maribelle had gotten there. “Did you hear that, Miriel? She said they’re swimming in pies! I should go make sure I get some before someone makes a contest out of them!”

“No one who is present tonight will be making contests out of anything, so there is nothing to worry about there.” Shaking his hand off of her arm, Miriel looked at Stahl over the rim of her glasses, before turning her attention across to Maribelle. “My, my, you got quite dressed up for a casual evening of celebrating the holiday season. Any particular reason for why? I am most curious about if there is anything else I should be open to being excited for on this snowy evening.”

“Nope, not really. I just enjoy dressing up when I get the chance, and since I’ve kind of got a ten-month-old at home, that chance doesn’t come up often.” Maribelle looked down at her legs, which were covered in the pale fabric of her dress, and she sighed longingly. “Seriously, I think I’ve gotten dressed up like this maybe twice in the past year. I was not giving up this opportunity for anything, not even the weather.”

“Well, you look marvelous, and do not let anyone tell you otherwise. A good formal dress has a place in any situation, including casual holiday parties, and you will be outshining every other soul who enters this building tonight.” Giving a small smile, Miriel’s view of the woman across from her was obstructed by Stahl leaning in front of her, his eyes closed and his nose scrunching up. “What are you doing right now, Stahl? You are aware a conversation is happening here, correct?”

He nodded, before standing to follow whatever it was he was sniffing. “I can’t tell if I’m smelling perfume or cookies, and I really hope it’s the second one,” he explained, walking out of the little room and out to the main gathering place, leaving the ladies there to both sit in silence as they thought about what they had just seen. His head poked around the corner a minute or two later, a cookie in his mouth, and the way his face was alight with joy was almost enough to convince both ladies to follow him for the treats.

Almost was the key word. “That man interests me, due to his strange habits and his downright obsessive behaviors toward food,” Miriel said, brushing the leg of her pants a bit to straighten them. “It is a shame our paths never cross aside from at outings such as this one, because studying him would be a wonderful experience. Ah, such is the life of the police force’s bookkeeper, I suppose.”

“I guess? I mean, I know you and Frederick work together all the time. He’s always telling me that if he doesn’t fix Chrom and Robin’s mistakes, you do it when you’re doing the paperwork, and you do a great job of it.” Hearing the compliment, Miriel gave a small smile and a thanks, which made Maribelle return the favor in terms of facial expression. “I wouldn’t ever see him as a liar, so I think you can take what I’ve told you as the absolute truth. You’re such an important member of this organization.”

“Hearing you say that is one thing, but it makes me wonder if I could pull this information from the source himself.” Getting to her feet, Miriel bowed slightly before making her move to leave. “Excuse my rudeness for abandoning you like this, but my curiosity must be answered while I have the chance. I will return once I have been given my answer.”

She politely waved as the other woman left, but as soon as she was sure Miriel wouldn’t be turning around to check on her, Maribelle sighed and reached into the top of her dress, pulling her phone out from where it had been nestled in her bra. The device was vibrating in her hands, and she thought it was a real miracle that it hadn’t been heard at all, even though she was sure she had been making some really interesting facial expressions as it had been vibrating in her chest. Without a second’s hesitation to even look and make sure that whoever was calling was someone she wanted to talk to, she swiped the screen to answer and put the phone to her ear, not expecting the first words she heard to be what they were.

* * *

Being in charge of her niece and nephew wasn’t anything out of the normal for Lissa. When she had lived with them, whenever Chrom and Olivia had something going on, she was instantly put in charge of them for however long was needed. Having to watch Brady wasn’t that big of a deal either, since he was the only non-family member that Maribelle trusted with him. But to watch those three kids at once, plus Robin’s children as well, it was shaping up to be a nightmare, even with there being two other people who were technically in charge and supposed to be helping out.

Olivia would have been up for helping more if she wasn’t locking herself in her bedroom to finish wrapping presents to put under the gigantic Christmas tree that had been erected in the living room. Lon’qu never was going to be helpful, not when all he was doing was sitting on the couch and watching some old holiday special and coldly telling children to leave him alone when they wandered near. So it was up to Lissa to keep the five kids in check, which was really difficult when four of them were running around and getting into trouble wherever they pleased, while the fifth wasn’t going anywhere fast unless she was moving him around.

“Come on, slowpokes!” Stomping her foot into one of the stairs about halfway up to the upper landing, one of Robin’s little girls, the pigtailed one with a giant smile on her face, looked down at the other three kids she was playing with. “Bad guys don’t wait and we can’t let the bad guys win!”

“There aren’t any bad guys…” the other of the girls, her short hair currently held back from her face with a Christmas headband, looked up at her sister and shook a fist. “Cynthia, we aren’t playing bad guys and good guys! We don’t have a bad guy!”

“We don’t have a bad guy?” Cynthia’s face fell as her little fantasy world came tumbling down around her, and she sat down on the stair she’d been standing on moments before. “Aw man, I thought we had one! Morgan, why don’t we have one?”

Reaching the step her sister was sitting on, Morgan climbed onto Cynthia’s lap and shrugged. “No idea, must be your fault. Silly little sister, always getting the games wrong.”

“I know how that feels,” Inigo said, hanging his head as he heard the sisters talking. “Lucy is always saying stuff like that to me. Big sisters are hard to make happy when playing with them, and it’s not fun.”

“I so let you make up games sometimes, you liar.” Nudging her brother in the ribs, which made him do the same back to her, Lucina got onto the stair right below the one the sisters were sharing and put her hands on her hips, leaning close into them. “Now, um, how do you know which one of you is the older one? Aren’t you, well, the same?”

Both of the girls who were seated there looked at Lucina like they’d been asked a question they heard a million times before. “We’re not identical, no,” Morgan replied, straightening her back while she was still sitting on her sister’s lap. “I mean, we’re close, but not the same! I’m the older and prettier one, and Cynthia’s the younger and not prettier one.”

“I’m still pretty though, right?” Trying to move so she could see around her sister, Cynthia gave up on trying when she didn’t get any response, and sighed as she stopped moving around. “Guess not. Morgan wins again.”

“You’re pretty!” Running up to be by his sister’s side, with her respectfully moving so that they could both stand on the stair, Inigo blinked a few times as he tried to tell which of the girls it had been who had spoken, but because of their near-identicalness, plus the fact that one of them was blocking the other, he just couldn’t tell. “I want to say it to your face, ‘cause that’s the nice thing to do, but I don’t know who said it…”

“It was me!” Once again getting chipper, Cynthia finally gained the courage to push her sister aside to be able to see Inigo. “I said it! Me! Cynthia! You think I’m pretty?”

He smiled so intensely that both of his eyes were squinting and his face was scrunching up. “I sure do! I think most all girls are pretty, but ‘specially you!” The giggling that resulted from that, from both sides of the conversation, was enough to make Lissa, standing down at the bottom of the stairs, think that she was watching the first hints of young love blossom, even though her nephew did tend to tell every girl that he thought she was pretty. But not everyone present for the exchange was fine with the innocent flirting, and they soon made that known.

It happened faster than anyone could have possibly stopped it, which made it all the worse for those of whom watched it. Morgan, not liking that her younger twin was being talked to in such a manner, leaned forward and pushed Inigo backwards, causing him to tumble down the stairs, landing upside down at Lissa’s feet. He seemed to be perfectly fine, although a bit unsure of what had happened. “You okay there, kiddo?” Lissa asked, bending down to check on him, after repositioning how she was holding Brady in her arms. “Looks like you just took quite a fall.”

He went to reply to her, but began coughing instead, sputtering blood as he did. By that point, Lucina had gotten down the stairs to see what damage her brother had incurred, and she was present to see the red droplets spitting everywhere as he coughed. “Oh no, what’s wrong?” she asked, working with her aunt to get him seated in a way that wasn’t upside down. When he was finally able to open his mouth, they got to see that, somewhere along the way down the stairs, he had forcefully knocked his two front teeth out, and they were pouring blood as they dangled by mere threads. “This isn’t good. Don’t you worry, Inigo, we can fix this!”

He stared at them with a dazed look in his eyes, so unaware of what had happened that it hadn’t registered that he was supposed to be in a lot of pain. “Lucina, you go knock on your mom’s door and ask her to come here,” Lissa said, taking charge of the situation like she knew she needed to. “I’ll make sure it’s only his two teeth that got knocked out of place.”

“Got it, auntie Lissa!” Giving her brother one last concerned look, the little girl ran down the hall and could be heard banging her fist on a door loudly moments later. That left Lissa standing there over the still-dazed boy, as he was trying to figure out what had happened. He still wasn’t acting as if he was in pain, which made her very hopeful that there wasn’t too much more going on with him, and she was right—from a basic inspection, he hadn’t seemed to bite through his lip or tongue, which meant that all he had done was hit his teeth against a stair hard enough to pop them loose.

The twin girls were down beside them at this point, Cynthia looking at Inigo through gaps in her hands that were covering her face and Morgan looking with an expression of pure horror on her face. “I didn’t mean to do this,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “I just don’t like boys messing with my sister! Boys are icky and not fun!”

“Well, now you know that when you’re playing on the stairs, pushing boys away isn’t an option unless you want this to happen.” Hearing some whimpering, Lissa thought that maybe it was her nephew finally catching on to what had happened, but instead it was the child still tucked in her arm. She gave an exasperated sigh, stepping back so that she could readjust how she was holding him without hurting anyone. “Why did this have to happen tonight, anyway? Of all the nights, I swear!”

“What’s happening out here with my little boy?” the panicked voice of Olivia asked, as she rushed to the scene as fast and delicately as her feet could bring her, Lucina following right behind. “Lucy said that he fell down the stairs and was bleeding.”

At the sight of his mom, it seemed that Inigo finally was realizing that he was in pain, made obvious by the way he was grabbing for her arm and beginning to make groaning noises akin to a dying animal. “Uh, let’s get him somewhere where he won’t be dribbling blood all over the floor,” Lissa said, watching as blood began pouring out of the corners of the boy’s mouth. “Maybe the bathroom sink? He’s got a mouth full of blood still, I think, and he should really get on spitting that out.” Why she hadn’t thought to have him do that sooner, she wasn’t sure—maybe it had been the heat of the moment, or maybe it had been her not quite thinking clearly—but once she brought it up she saw the boy nod and allow a few droplets of watery blood to fall straight to the hardwood floor.

All of the young girls present screamed, Morgan nearly climbing onto Cynthia once more and Lucina hiding behind her mom, who was working to get Inigo to his feet so that she could get him anywhere else. “Come on, little one, let’s get you cleaned up,” the soft-spoken woman said, smiling down at her son as he resisted standing. “We need to see what’s happened in that mouth of yours, to see what you did to your pretty teeth.” Despite his clear disinterest in listening to her, she was able to finally get him to his feet and begin leading him towards the nearest bathroom. “What a shame that this had to happen right before we get to take all those present-opening pictures…”

With them leaving, Lissa took a moment to look at the twin girls, still sitting horrified and one on top of the other. “I don’t know what made you think that was okay, but that was totally not okay. Stairs, really? I’m going to tell your dad to deal with you for that, because I don’t even know where to start!” Morgan gave a small, timid nod, and Cynthia closed the gaps in her fingers so she couldn’t see what was going on. “Now you two go sit somewhere and play quietly. No stairs. No running. And especially no being mean to the other kids!” One more small nod later and the girls were slowly walking off towards the dining room, which was not the best place for them to be playing but Lissa couldn’t bring herself to care. At that moment, all she wanted to do was clean up the blood from the floor and put the kid she was holding down.

The mess was easy to take care of once she had a towel to sop it up with. It was finding a good place to set Brady down that was the problem, because after she had thrown the bloody towel into the laundry, she went into the living room where Lon’qu was still watching something or other and instantly the child started fussing, not liking the noise of the show that was on or something. “Please remove him from in here,” the gruff man said, not taking his eyes off of the screen. “Trying to watch a show.”

“Sorry, I just…don’t know where else to go.” She tried adjusting him yet again, but the crying got louder and she sighed. There were other places she could go to watch him, but they were either upstairs where she then wouldn’t be able to hear the other kids, or in the dining room where the girls should have been sitting and playing. She definitely did not want to see those very similar faces watching her as she struggled to keep this baby from crying, so she stood her ground and shook her head as Lon’qu actually looked at her. “Please, don’t make me watch all the kids on my own. You’re supposed to help too.”

“No one told me I was helping. I should have taken Chrom’s offer to go to the party instead of being stuck in this madhouse.” As he spoke, Lon’qu stood up, walking up to Lissa and motioning for her to hand over the child. She looked at him hesitantly, unsure of if she could trust his motives or not, and he frowned even deeper than he normally was. “Give me the screaming monster and we’ll settle this here.”

“He might be screaming, but Brady’s not a monster.” The words made her even more hesitant, but the way Lon’qu was just standing there, arms open for helping, were the convincing image that got her to pass the child over to him. Once she wasn’t holding him, she looked at her own arms and saw them both covered in what was either drool or tears. “Ew, that’s so gross. I think he’s—“

“Teething. Yes. Something that I’m sure your nephew will be jealous of this child for.” Holding Brady far in front of him with mostly extended arms, Lon’qu let his eyes narrow, almost glaring at the boy. “I think I know what we need to do to keep him from making too much of a fuss.”

“—yeah, that’s what I was going to say.” Lissa smiled, before doing a bit of a double take as she realized what else she had just heard. “Wait, you know what we should do? Since when do you know anything about kids?”

Not moving a muscle, Lon’qu replied, “I just do. Now listen to me and do as I say.” She nodded, watching in awe as he brought the child closer to him, just for the poor boy to start whining again. At the first sound of a cry, he was pushed back away, which hushed him. “Hm. Maybe you should just sit with him while I do what must be done. I can’t seem to get him to trust me.”

“I’ll take him back then, I guess,” she said, carefully grabbing the child she’d just passed over to him and holding him loosely in front of her, the crying starting up once more. “Now what’s this great plan of yours, because I swear I’m going to call Maribelle and tell her she’s got to come back and get him to stop if we don’t figure this out soon.”

“You just sit down and tend to him the best you can. I will work out the details.” Giving a curt nod, Lon’qu pushed past Lissa and left the room, leaving her standing there slightly confused. She had intended to follow him and see what he was doing, but the idea of ignoring his demand and seeing what sort of rage he’d fall into wasn’t worth it, not when he seemed to know what he was doing. That left her to go sit down, cradling Brady in her arms the best she could with him fussing and squirming like he was.

“Seriously, I need to talk to your mom about how she babies you too much. I get it that your mouth’s probably all hurting and stuff, but you shouldn’t be such a pain to watch. Lucina and Inigo never were this bad when they were this small.” Trying to make light of the situation, Lissa took hold of one of the boy’s hands and moved it around, hoping that it would be enough of a distraction to calm him down. It worked, somewhat, because the crying stopped, but whenever she’d pause to give her arm rest, he’d start sniffling again. “Gods, you’re so spoiled. You really are your mom’s kid.”

Paying so much attention to how Brady was reacting to her moving his hand, Lissa didn’t notice when Lon’qu came back into the room, and so when he was once again standing in front of her, she was caught off guard and gave a loud gasp. “There is no need for that. I just returned with what I went to get, and now you unhanding the child and giving him back to me would be appreciated.”

“Can’t you do whatever it is with me holding him?” It wasn’t that she didn’t want to follow his directions at that point, but rather it was the way he was so demanding that made Lissa uneasy about listening to Lon’qu. “I bet it would be easier that way, anyway. So you can have two hands to do it and all that.”

“I can do it with you holding him. Just sit him up and stop coddling him. You should know that you don’t have to follow through with the terrible behavior his mom exhibits towards him.” Surprised that he had paid enough attention over the past few days to know about how Maribelle treated the child, Lissa knew that she should just go along with what he was saying and not look back on the decision. As soon as she had the baby sitting up in her lap, Lon’qu knelt down in front of them and grabbed a little bag out of his pocket, opening it and tilting it sideways so that the powder it contained spilled closer to the opening. She watched as he brought it closer and closer to Brady’s mouth, until the slightest edge of the bag was touching his lip, and once a few specks of the powder were inside the child’s mouth he pulled it away and sealed it back up. “There. That should do it. No more crying, no more whining, and no more intolerable child for the evening.”

“D-did you just drug him?” Watching as Lon’qu put the bag back in his pocket, Lissa had a hard time believing the stern no he gave as an answer. “Then what was that? You can’t just put something in a kid’s mouth without telling me what’s going on! Maribelle will kill me if she finds out you drugged her kid!”

“He hasn’t been drugged. Stop making a scene.” Standing back up, Lon’qu looked down at Lissa with his normal neutral expression, which only made her doubt him more. “If you’re so concerned about what it is, you can either ask me like a normal person, or you can ask Olivia when she’s finished tending to the hurt boy. She would approve of me using this on this child, and so should you.”

Hearing Olivia’s name be mentioned should have made Lissa relax a bit about what was going on, but she was too skeptical to just be calmed by knowing her sister-in-law would find it okay. “Yeah, well, she’s not the one who made the decision to do it, so you better fess up real quick to what you’ve done to Brady, or I’m going to call Maribelle and tell her that you’re trying to kill her baby!”

“If it kills him, that’s not my problem. All Feroxi children are given this when they’re ill and in discomfort, in tiny doses.” He pat his pocket, touching the little bulge that the bag made inside of it. “A remedy that stops all suffering and makes warriors strong once again.”

“Why couldn’t you just say that sooner?” Lissa, making a mental note to ask Olivia at a later time about the validity of that statement, narrowed her eyes at Lon’qu as he softened his gaze at her. “Seriously. Now I feel bad for thinking you were trying to kill him. Are you just so bad at talking to women that you didn’t know how to approach bringing that up to me?” Lon’qu visibly stiffened, choosing to ignore what she had said and walk out of the room again rather than reply to anything. She shook her head and took a deep breath, looking down at the child in her arms, who was beginning to doze off, whatever it was that he had been given taking quick effect on helping him. “I really hope you’re just going to sleep, and that you’re not dying,” she said, leaning down to kiss the dark-haired top of Brady’s head. “Which I don’t think you’re dying, not really.”

The boy gave a sleepy yawn, reaching up to grab the end of one of Lissa’s pigtails as he did, and she kissed him again. “You’re such a good baby, even though you’re a pain to be in charge of when your mom’s not around.” His fingers latching around the locks of hair within his reach, she chose to start cuddling him a bit closer, feeling how he was beginning to lose his sitting balance as he started drifting to sleep. “Gods, watching you is so much fun though. I guess watching you is a good…hm.” She tapped her tongue to the roof of her mouth a few times as she thought about what she wanted to say. “A good way to know what kind of parent I’d be, I guess? Not like that really matters.”

Her tongue-tapping stopped and she blinked slowly, looking from Brady up to the empty entryway to the room, then over to the decorated Christmas tree that was standing tall in the corner, finally letting her eyes track back to the child. “I always thought I’d be a better mom than Maribelle, but she fell in love with and got married to a guy who became a great dad to compliment her decent mommy skills. And I…think I’m jealous of that. Of her having a baby like you,” she jostled the now-sleeping child slightly, “and me having nothing but a boyfriend who disappears with other women right before the holidays.”

Again her eyes tracked to the tree, but instead of taking in its lights and baubles, she focused on the presents underneath it, several of which she knew were for her—and she wasn’t supposed to admit it, but she knew what was inside one of them. She knew that, delicately wrapped with the help of Chrom and anyone else who was in on the plan, Vaike had put a ring under the tree for her, and he was completely expecting to make a big scene about proposing to her the following morning. “How funny is it that he wants to marry me, but he can’t even be around for when he wants to ask me? If that’s how things are going to be, how am I supposed to eventually have kids with him, if he’s probably just going to disappear?”

A glimmer of hope appeared in her eyes then, as something came to her, a thought she’d tried so hard to ignore for the longest time. Carefully standing up as to not wake up the child she was holding, she made her way out of the room and up the stairs to the bedroom where his crib was, so that she could lay him down and be free of watching him for the time being. “Thanks for helping me realize something, you sweet boy you,” she softly said, leaving the room but keeping the door open just a crack, in case he woke up and needed her to come tend to him. Once she was back in the hall, she noticed that the door to the room Lon’qu was staying in was also ajar, but she refrained from messing with it because, in her mind, there was something more important that she needed to do.

Flopping onto her bed, she reached for her phone that was sitting on her pillow, and after ignoring the missed calls and messages that she had no real desire to deal with, she found the number she was looking for, dialing it and waiting for the other person to pick up. As soon as she felt the other party was listening, she had at it: “Maribelle, I don’t think I’m in love with Vaike anymore.”

“What? Lissa, dear, please don’t startle me with such absurd comments. You’ve been in love with him for years. So maybe he’s off being trapped who-knows-where, and maybe he’s the reason you are not here at this party tonight, but that doesn’t mean you have fallen out of love with him.” It was evident by the way that Maribelle was speaking that she was caught off-guard by the sudden confession, and Lissa so badly wanted to interrupt her to tell her that she was dead wrong, but waited to hear what else her friend had to say, a good decision in the end. “Then again, I know that not all love is meant to last, and whatever reason you have for saying this must be a good one.”

“It is, trust me. And I’ve got no one to thank for it but you.” The surprised gasp on the other side of the line was enough to make Lissa laugh. “No, I’m not saying I’m in love with you, Maribelle! I’m saying that if it weren’t for you making me watch Brady tonight, I wouldn’t have realized that I need a man in my life that I’d want giving me kids, and that Vaike just isn’t reliable enough for that.” Continuing laughing, she slowly nodded to herself and thought about what else she’d come to realize. “And also, uh, I think I might have found a guy who can do what I need.”

Without missing a beat, Maribelle had something to say, her voice full of hesitation but excitement at the same time. “It’s that Lon’qu fellow, isn’t it? I can’t say I see anything in him that I don’t see in the man you already have, but if it makes you happy…”

“I haven’t done anything yet! I’m just saying, he can do what I need in a guy, and he’s totally actually here if I decide I want to make my move.” She went to explain why she felt this way about him, but chose to refrain because explaining the whole situation with the medicine seemed like it would be better to do in person. “And I totally care for Vaike as a person, like I always have, but maybe me getting with someone Chrom wants me with isn’t the best idea for me in the end.”

“I’m not going to stop you, with whatever it is you’re going to be doing, but just make sure you’re making the best decision before you go through with anything. The last thing you need is him coming home to you no longer being with him and him not knowing why.” Hearing that honestly made Lissa get a little angry; why was Maribelle caring so much about how a guy was going to feel, when her best friend in the world was talking to her about finding new love? But after taking a deep breath, she accepted that Maribelle was just trying to make sure she wasn’t going to make any mistakes that she’d regret.

“You got it. I’ll let him down easy when he comes home, no surprises at all. I’m sure he sees it coming, anyway, with him not being here and all.” Another deep breath, this one to stop herself from getting too excited about what all of this meant for the rest of her evening. “Er, I should let you go now, shouldn’t I? I don’t want to take up your night out. Just don’t worry about me, or your baby, or anyone that’s here, and have a good night. We’ll be able to talk more later once you’re back.” Without letting Maribelle get another word in, Lissa hung up and tossed her phone back onto her pillow, that couple minutes of conversation enough to raise her spirits more than she thought possible.

This time when she passed by the slightly-open door to that room, she pushed it open and put her hands on her hips for when Lon’qu looked to see who the intruder was. “You. Me. Downstairs. We’ve got a lot of talking to do.” He looked at her like she was crazy, but stopped whatever he had been doing and followed her down the stairs and back to the living room where the show he’d been watching before was still on. Shrugging, he sat down to resume watching that, but she turned the television off and sat down next to him, giving him enough space so that he wouldn’t complain about her being too close. “I don’t want you distracting yourself from me by any means whatsoever,” she explained, looking him in the eyes with a newfound sense of wonder. “Because let me tell you, I need you to focus on me so we can work things out.”

“I was unaware there were problems to begin with,” he coldly replied, making motions to get up, but she loudly screeched to get him to stay seated. “Ahem. What is it that we need to talk about, since I suppose I will not be leaving otherwise.”

“It’s about you. And me. And getting to know each other.” She clasped her hands before her and smiled, hoping he’d do anything but look at her with judgmental eyes. But when his expression didn’t change, her spirits sank a bit and she frowned. “Come on, it’s almost Christmas. Let’s just talk until Chrom and the others get home and see how we feel about each other then, okay?” When he didn’t give a rebuttal, but instead shrugged with one shoulder and softened his scornful glare a bit, she knew that it was her chance. Hopefully, by the time Chrom came home, she’d know enough about this guy to make her final decision about her romantic life. Either that or she’d be spending every moment until Vaike got home trying to decide on what to do.


	8. A Night at the Station, Part Two

Everyone should have been at that party. That included the two people stuck up in the snowy cabin, which had gotten even snowier with the passing through of another storm that seemed to have dumped just about another foot of fresh powder on them. With the likelihood of freedom coming anytime soon fading fast, it became a game of learning how to really cope with what was happening and accepting that maybe, just maybe, getting home by the turn of the new year was their best option. At least, that’s how Vaike felt about everything, because unlike Sully, he hadn’t been in constant contact with people from the outside world. He had just had her to talk to and hear things from, and whatever information she was getting was coming from people he didn’t know if he could trust or not.

That was why, when Sully’s phone began ringing that night, when everyone that he could think of that would contact her would be partying, he couldn’t help but see who it was. She had made the mistake of leaving her phone out in the main room while she showered, and he knew he shouldn’t have taken advantage of that, but it was too tempting. Besides, how was he going to let her know what was going on, anyway? He wasn’t making the mistake of walking in on her showering again. He’d just see who was calling and remember, hopefully, to tell her once she was available.

To see that it was Frederick calling, that made him wonder why it was always her that he was talking to and not him. “Is there somethin’ wrong with the Vaike?” he asked out loud, looking at the phone with a saddened face. “I mean, Chrom not callin’ me, that makes sense, but Frederick? We’ve known each other almost as long as we’ve both known Chrom. Him callin’ Sully must mean that he’s chattin’ her up, thinkin’ ‘bout leavin’ his lady. I can’t let Maribelle suffer that sorta thing, no way.” Determination filling him, he grabbed the phone and answered it with, “Hey, what d’ya think you’re doin’, callin’ Sully on a night like tonight? Go focus on your hot wife, will ya?”

“While I’m honored that you find me ‘hot’, I believe this phone belongs to someone who isn’t you, and I would much appreciate it if you let me speak to her instead.” Maribelle seemed taken aback at what she had been greeted with, and he couldn’t help but chuckle at the fact that he’d told her off. “Ugh, you are so rude. I have no idea what anyone could ever see in you.”

“Same back t’you, Maribelle. Ain’t you usin’ your man’s phone to do this calling, anyway? Can’t be gettin' on me for bein’ on Sully’s phone when you’re not even on your own.” He knew that it actually made sense for a husband and wife to be sharing a phone, while it made no sense at all for him to be using his unwilling housemate’s phone, but he hoped Maribelle wouldn’t call him out on that. “Now get to explainin’ why you’re even callin’ in the first place. Don’t you have other things to be worryin’ with?”

“I do have many things I could be worrying about, yes, but right now I would like to not focus on the insane amount of time it has taken Frederick to start a fire and instead put my attention to the well-being of a dear friend of mine. Give the phone to Sully. Right now.” The last two sentences took a turn, with her voice dropping to deadly serious tones, and he was just about to tell her that he couldn’t when he felt a dripping-wet hand touch his. He turned to look at what was happening, and there Sully stood, fresh out of the shower and barely wrapped in a towel, trying to pry the phone from where he was holding it.

Without so much as a fight, he let her have what rightfully was hers, and she retreated back into the bathroom, slamming the door shut once she was there. He could have found something else to do, but his curiosity about why Maribelle was calling to talk to Sully was too much to ignore, which led him to sit by the bathroom door, ear pressed up against the wood, trying to make out what was happening. Since he wasn’t able to hear what Maribelle was saying, it was very one-sided, but it was enough to try and figure things out.

He must have missed the beginning of the story, because the first thing he heard was Sully saying, “What do you expect me to do about that? It’s not my problem. Hasn’t been, isn’t, won’t ever be. Sucks that it’s going down this way, but there’s nothing for me to do here.” From that, he assumed that it was something going on with Maribelle—maybe even why she was using Frederick’s phone to call. Maybe she’d caught on to his frequent calls to Sully (this was an assumption, but he was sure it was a thing) and she was trying to get action to be taken. Cementing this further was when he next heard, “Seriously? You want me to do that? I’ve told you already, I don’t know the first thing about that love nonsense. It’s not a thing I’ve involved myself in before.”

“What’s she in there goin’ on about?” he whispered to himself, but the problem with Vaike whispering was that he wasn’t exactly quiet with it, and so Sully began banging on the door trying to scare him off. “Okay, okay, I’ll be leavin’ you alone while you deal with your cheatin’ scandal or whatever it is you’re talkin’ to her about.” He clearly wasn’t going to actually leave her alone, but when she opened the door to glare at him and tell him to get lost, he had to take action and disappear.

Sitting in the chair and waiting for her to get done talking wasn’t what he had wanted to do, but he couldn’t risk getting caught spying on her again. Even still, while he wasn’t able to hear everything she was saying, when her voice would get loud he could hear the occasional snippet of conversation, such as, “I’m not telling you again, I can’t do that!” or “You’re asking the wrong woman for help here!” Whatever he’d hear, it would make him more curious about what she was talking about, as it seemed less and less likely that it was what he had initially thought. But if it wasn’t about someone being an unfaithful husband, then what could it possibly be?

He didn’t really have the time to ponder that, nor did he have any direction to do it, because soon Sully was walking out of the bathroom, fully clothed and no longer on the phone. He took one look at her and opened his mouth to ask her a question, but she shushed him before he could even get a sound out. “Don’t you dare start with me. What the hell were you doing, listening in on that? First you answer my phone, then you try to know what’s going on? You’re a damn disgusting pig, you know that?”

“I was just doin’ ya a favor, okay? Don’t need to be throwin’ names at me.” Hands raised in a motion of innocence, Vaike noticed that she wasn’t even bothering with looking at him, instead just sitting over on the far end of the couch with a heavy sigh. “Now calm down and lemme know what’s goin’ on, will ya?”

“What’s going on,” she replied coldly, “is none of your damn business.”

“Sorry for tryin’ to be supportive and understandin’ and all that, I guess.” The way she turned her head to be facing the absolute opposite direction from where he sat made him feel more and more like he had done something completely wrong, and he thought to try asking what was going on again before his tiny shreds of common sense convinced him that wasn’t the smartest idea. Instead, taking his own phone in hand, he looked at his complete lack of messages or calls and shook his head, gripping the device tightly before standing up and walking towards the front door. As he passed by where Sully had been facing, she turned her head to continue not looking at him, making it very clear that he’d done something very, very wrong.

After putting his jacket and shoes on as fast as he could, Vaike opened the front door and stepped out into the thigh-high snowdrift that had accumulated against the house. He knew that he wasn’t going to be making it very far out in such extreme amounts of snow, but being outside the house just far enough to not feel its warmth was enough for him anyway. He tilted his head back, the bitter cold stinging his ears and cheeks, and he looked up at the clear sky that was speckled with stars like he’d never seen before. “Why’d all this haveta happen now, of all the times?” he asked, hoping something in the sky above would answer him. “I just wanna be spendin’ the holiday with someone who cares. Is that too much to ask?”

Standing in the doorway behind him, having put on her own jacket, scarf, and shoes not long after he had, Sully snorted. “It sure is. Now get your ass back in here before you let too much of a draft in. The dramatics aren’t cutting it tonight.”

“You were just angry at me, so why should the Vaike listen t’ya? Betcha if I try to go back in, you’ll just slam the door in my face.” She insisted that she wouldn’t, repeating the line about the dramatics not cutting it, and he took a deep breath, the icy air making it look like he was trying to be a billowing smokestack. “You know what, you’re probably right. I’m a dumbass for thinkin’ anything but what you say, anyway.”

“Not true. You’re a dumbass all the time.” She stepped out of his way as he came back in, having to shake snow off of his legs once he was back inside. “Really, though, what was the point of going out there? Now your pants are going to be wet, and I’m not sharing a bed with a guy with wet pants.”

“When you say it like that, it really sounds like we’re gonna be sleepin’ together, which we ain’t. I’ve got a girl back home who I’ve gotta stay faithful to.” He was too busy taking off his jacket to notice the look on Sully’s face when he said that, her expression one that looked slightly pained. “But if you don’t wanna share a bed with me ‘cause of some wet pants, no big deal. Back to the chair and couch we go.” That was when he looked at her, and saw that she was shaking her head a bit at the suggestion. “Oh, well, if you ain’t down for that, what are you suggestin’? That ol’ Vaike goes without pants for the night? This is gettin' more and more like actually sleepin’ together, I swear.”

She shook her head more. “No, it’s not. I’d just rather not wake up soaking wet because you decided to cuddle with me all night.” No sooner had she spoken, and the secondary meaning of that line had been realized by them both, did she stomp her foot down and slap herself in the forehead. “That’s not how I wanted that damn sentence to come out. Just sleep with no pants if you know what’s good for you.”

“As long as I ain’t gonna wake up with you touchin’ up on me, I think I can handle this.” Smiling at her, after chuckling a bit at that terribly-worded statement that had gotten her so flustered, he began to walk towards the bedroom, ready to go lay down and put an end to the night. He accepted that he wasn’t going to get information on that phone call out of her then, but maybe the next morning she’d be in the Christmas spirit and share what was going on—and in his rush to head to the bedroom, he didn’t notice how she stood there, frozen in place at what she had said, color rising to her cheeks.

* * *

“Oh, there you are, Maribelle. Why have you taken to sitting alone over here?” Coming into the little room off to the side of the main gathering place, Frederick looked at his wife with a somewhat worried smile. “You typically try to be the center of attention at these sorts of events. Is something wrong?”

She shook her head, standing up and making sure her dress was properly adjusted, taking special care to not tug too much at the top part that was once again holding her phone close to her chest. “No, no, I had to take an important phone call courtesy of my dearest friend Lissa. Before you ask,” she said, seeing that he looked as if he was just about to say what she was expecting him to, “she didn’t mention a thing about our precious Brady, which I assume is a good thing. The call was on other matters entirely.”

“Well, if you’ve finished with those matters, I would love for you to come out and join everyone while we are here. There is no point in you having come to this party if you sit alone the entire time.” He held out his hand and she grabbed it, allowing him to pull her in close to him. “That’s more like it, my love. Shall we proceed with rejoining everyone?”

“Of course, Frederick! I have a feeling that the rest of my night will be best spent at your side, not dealing with nonsense that’s taking place outside of this building.” She leaned in closer to try and kiss him, but the strong smell of smoke caught her by surprise and caused her to cough a bit. “Oh my, you smell like you fell into the fireplace. How long did you sit by the flames to make sure they were fine?”

He laughed before shrugging. “Until I decided to search for you. Twenty minutes, perhaps?” That was not the answer she expected, and she dissolved in giggles because of it, but then the reality of his time estimate sank in and she quickly stopped. Had it really only been that little amount of time since he had gone off to start the fire and she had tried to find somewhere she could field calls that she hadn’t expected to receive? She distinctly remembered that the call between her and Lissa wasn’t that long at all, but the one that she had with Sully felt like it had gone on for hours. From the way it started with Vaike, the one person she really hadn’t wanted to have to talk to after hearing Lissa’s realization, to the way Sully insisted time and time again that she wasn’t going to do the obvious, it was just a long, full call. “Ahem, Maribelle?” She blinked and gave a small noise of response. “You seem to have spaced out on the question I was asking you. Is everything truly okay?”

Lying to him was hard, especially when she just wanted to spill all the possible words out into the open right there; she wanted to tell him about how Lissa was potentially making moves on another man while her boyfriend was blissfully unaware, but at the same time, she wanted to tell him that she was trying to get someone else to make moves on Vaike so that he wouldn’t be too hurt when he came home to not having a girlfriend. “Yes, yes, everything is perfectly fine! Why wouldn’t it be? It’s the holiday season, after all. There’s no reason for anything to be considered wrong or bad right now!”

“As much as I want to question further, I assume that the answer you’ve given me is all you will give, no matter how much asking I do. Why don’t we rejoin everyone else and the festivities at hand, rather than standing here alone? If we are with others, your assertion that things are okay will be put to the test.” She wasn’t surprised at all that he had called her out on her lie, but for him to give up so quickly was odd to her. Frederick was normally one for getting to the bottom of things before he moved on to anything else, leaving no stone unturned on the way. But when she saw that he was looking at her with an almost pleading gaze in his eyes, wanting her to give in to his word, she knew that the conversation would just continue on at a later time.

“Sounds fantastic, my love. We did come here to mingle with the people you work with, not to stand in each other’s loving company the entire time.” Finally leaning in to get that kiss she had initially tried for, he turned at the last possible second so that they could lock lips rather than her planting a kiss on his cheek, and that turned the moment of romantic expression into a longer one, one that only ended when she pulled away and gave a contented sigh. “That did wonders on clearing my mind. Now let’s get to that mingling!”

He smiled at her, running a hand through his hair as he wrapped his other arm around her tightly. “Yes, let’s. I’m sure Chrom will be curious as to where we got off to so soon after getting here. Last thing we need is for him to suspect we were, ahem, up to anything.”

“Oh, you know how Chrom is. He wouldn’t suspect that at all, even if it were happening right in front of him.” It took a second of them moving to head to where everyone else was gathered for Maribelle to realize what Frederick had been implying, and the sheer realization was enough to stop her in her tracks and cause him to cease movement as well. “My gods, did you really suggest such a thing? In a public place like this? You must have lost your mind!”

“My mind has not been lost, but rather distracted by the beauty of the woman beside me. I can assure you, I don’t expect any behaviors of that sort to take place, but you can never be sure if Chrom would do the same.” He began walking once more and she gave in and followed, not wanting to be too much more of a distraction from the evening than she’d already been.

In the main area of the station where the party was taking place, the food and drinks had started being passed around, and people were standing around talking to one another, grouped into little circles that, as Frederick pointed out when they first saw this, were indicative of the groups of friends working there. “If the people who are missing tonight were here, then I assume we would have made a third circle with them, which would have then rendered any of us showing up pointless. Why only talk to the people you are closest to?” he asked, steering Maribelle in the direction of the group that didn’t have Chrom and Robin as members of it. “So, with that in mind, let’s speak to some of our other friends first.”

“Do we have to?” she responded, wishing that she could drag her heels to stop him from making this decision for them both. She saw that in the group they were headed towards were the two people she’d already talked to that night, and she vaguely remembered the parting words she had exchanged with one of them. What if that was going to get brought up again, and instead of there being friendly discussion taking place, this ended up being a moment of someone stroking someone else’s ego? “Can we just go talk to Chrom, or, better yet, sit somewhere and wait for them to come talk to us?”

“No, no, we will be the ones taking initiative tonight!” At that, he stopped their movement and tapped the shoulder of one of the people in the circle, a woman with long red hair that was obscuring the back of whatever it was she was wearing. She turned to look at who was touching her, and for a second her face fell (as if Frederick wasn’t who she was expecting to see), before she gave a small nod and stepped a bit to the side to allow for the newcomers to make themselves comfortable in the circle. “Why thank you for making room for us, Cordelia. How are you this evening?”

“Fine,” she replied, still looking somewhat crestfallen, “but I would be better if someone else would join our group like he said he would.”

“Ignore her. She’s just being bitter that a certain blue-haired chief has yet to break from his conversation to come pay attention to her. He told us all that he would drop by once his urgent matters were taken care of, and that clearly has not happened yet.” Taking control of the conversation, Miriel looked to Maribelle, who stiffened at the wise woman’s eye contact. “And neither has my asking of the question that this radiant young lady brought to my attention, although I am positive that this may not be the best time for it.”

That was exactly what Maribelle had been afraid of, and if there were any way for her to agree that wouldn’t be noticed by anyone else, she would have done just that. It was just a shame that she was still attached to Frederick by means of him holding her tightly, and even the slightest of nods would have been detected—and, while she was thinking of what to do to keep Miriel from possibly asking what she wanted to, Frederick went ahead and opened the door for it. “Any question is welcome, Miriel. After all the hard work you do to keep us organized and on-track, I would be willing to field even the strangest of requests.”

“There is no need for me to ask anything right now, not after that compliment.” Blushing a bit from hearing such glowing words come from his mouth, Miriel gave a genuine smile in the direction of the couple. “How nice it is to know that I can believe what someone tells me someone else thinks of me. My faith in the state of humanity has been restored ever-so-slightly here tonight.”

“You mean you weren’t getting faith in humanity from talking to the rest of us?” Dropping his fork onto his plate that was simply covered in pieces of pie, Stahl stuck his lower lip out a bit. “It must have been the fact that I was eating. Sorry that Sumia makes such great pies, even if they do taste a little…lacking this year.”

“No kidding, I was expecting them to be as sweet as last year’s pickings, but no dice.” The voice caught nearly everyone by surprise, because it didn’t belong to any of the people who made up the circle, but when an orange head of hair popped into the circle on the other side of Cordelia, there was a collective sigh of relief. “Hey, what gives? I didn’t startle you all, did I? Can’t a man step away to search for sweets and come back without being the enemy?”

“He can, but when he decides to speak without making his presence known first, it can be quite shocking. However, we all know that you aren’t the enemy, even though you certainly think like one at times.” Frederick laughed, but not without giving a slightly narrowed glance at the person who had just joined them. “How did you get in here anyway, Gaius? I could have sworn Chrom explicitly said you were not to show up to this event without anyone accompanying you.”

“Great question! I’d say I have a great answer, but truth is, I did what I always do and snuck in.” Beaming, Gaius watched as Frederick’s glare narrowed further and he opened his mouth, presumably to tell him off. “Calm down, I got a date once I got here. Didn’t want to ask a lovely lady to the party until I knew she was going to be here alone.”

“That logic is incredibly flawed and I would spend the time debating every such flaw with you, but this is not the time. We should be relaxing and having fun right now, not bickering about silly rules and whatnot.” It was a statement that was catching people off guard once more, but the person that seemed most shocked by Miriel’s okay-ness with bending the rules was the rule-bender himself.

“Next time I get told I’m not allowed to crash a party, I’ll be making sure you’re first on my list for helping me get in.” After blowing a fake kiss in Miriel’s direction, much to her dismay, Gaius ducked back out of the circle and headed back over towards the table of goodies. “I’ll be back, maybe. Who knows? I mean, my date’s with you guys so I probably will be back.”

There was a second of silence that lingered once he was gone; Miriel was clearly beginning to regret her decision to not debate the flaws, while Frederick was continuing to glare at the man even as he was walking away, but it was Maribelle who decided to speak up with exactly what was on her mind. “Who would ever accept the offer to be his date to a party? From what I’ve heard, all he does is steal things and try to push the blame on innocents.”

Scuffing her shoe on the floor, Cordelia sighed. “I accepted his offer. It was dumb and I shouldn’t have, not when he was breaking the rules of the police force by being here, but I accepted it because I didn’t want to be alone tonight.”

Now it was Maribelle’s turn to be silent, her mouth stuck in a constant state of repeating the word “oh” under her breath as she tried to figure out how to apologize for what she had just said. “And since you accepted his offer,” Frederick cut in, not dropping his glare even slightly, “you should be the one to keep tabs on him and his behavior tonight. We don’t need him sneaking into offices and taking whatever he sees fit.”

“I can do that,” Cordelia replied, nodding slightly, before she turned her head in the complete opposite direction of where Gaius had gone, instead looking over at the other circular group, and she sighed. “I just hope that he’ll keep his word in the end and make this all worth it.”

“Who’s keeping his word?” Fork once again shoveling bites of pie into his mouth, Stahl made sure to swallow whatever it was he was currently eating before he continued speaking. “If it’s not the guy you’re the date for tonight, I don’t think you should worry about it. Too much to stress about, but that’s just me. Maybe you could go get something to snack on to take your mind off of things? Food always helps me.”

“Not everyone has such a romantic relationship with food as you do, Stahl. Noble advice, but perhaps Cordelia could just savor the evening with the man she agreed to be the date for, instead of savoring other things.” Everyone understood that Miriel was referring back to the food thing, but her wording elicited a few chuckles from one or two of the people surrounding her, and she rolled her eyes, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “You all are too immature sometimes. Nice to see that some of you are not ashamed to showcase that, though.”

Somewhere in the building, what sounded like a landline phone began ringing, and while the sound was just faint enough for everyone to hear it, it was loud enough to startle Stahl into dropping his plate, pie hitting the floor at his feet. “A call? But we’re having a party! Can’t the one guy who’s actually supposed to be working get a _little_ bit of time to enjoy the party before he has to do work?” He was dancing around for a few seconds, debating whether or not he needed to go answer the call or not, and Miriel helped him find his answer when she wordlessly pointed him in the direction of where the phone was. He nodded and bolted off that way, leaving everyone standing in his wake wondering what to do about the mess he’d left behind. Miriel handled that too, bending down and cleaning up his plate, and while she did that Cordelia decided she was going to do as had been suggested to her and go follow Gaius, which left only the married couple to decide what they were then going to do.

Their decision came easy, as Chrom could be heard calling for Frederick, and he was not going to ignore his friend and higher-up. “Come on, my love, let’s go see what Chrom wants to ask of me now,” he said, turning Maribelle so that they could walk over and become part of the other circle that had formed.

“I’ve only been calling for you for a few seconds, did you hear me before I started or something?” Chrom asked with a laugh as he made room beside him for Frederick and Maribelle to join his circle. “Either way, thanks for coming so quickly. We’ve got something that needs to be done before the weather gets too bad once more.”

“Aw, come on, are you really going to send us away?” It was the voice, tinged with hints of joking, that belonged to that white-haired Henry, and Maribelle couldn’t help but look over at the man as he spoke, his eyes closed and head tilted back in case he was going to start chuckling at whatever he was saying. “We’re good, friendly officers, I swear! We haven’t tried to do a single bad thing while we’ve been here! We don’t want to go to Ferox anymore, so just let us stay in Ylisse forever!”

“Yes, let us stay here,” Tharja added, extending her arm forward to try and grab Robin, who stepped back to get far out of her reach. “We’ll behave, maybe.”

Chrom shook his head, even though he hadn’t seen the attempted touching. “Sorry, tickets were rebooked on the force’s dime, which means you’re costing all of us money right now. If Ferox doesn’t end up being the place you hope it is, you are always welcome back to our fold if necessary.”

“Chrom! Is that really the best idea?” Robin, moving back to his original position just as Tharja tried once more to touch him, gave a loud groan. “I don’t think I could live with _that_ one being one of the police family here.” Under his breath, he added, “She’s already made me call my father, and that was worse than the patting and grabbing…”

“It may not be the best idea, but they are officers unhappy with their current station, and I will do what I can to assist them in being happy with what they do.” Giving everyone a thumbs-up, the only person who gave him one in return was Sumia, who was clearly only trying to get his attention and didn’t have much care on the matter at hand. “Okay, maybe we will have to talk this over a nice meal back home sometime, but it wouldn’t be all that bad if it did happen! Lighten up a little!”

“Er, is this why you summoned me here? To be witness to this discussion?” Frederick gave Chrom a slightly skeptical look as he continued, “Or is there something else that you are simply setting the stage for?”

“Right, you were called here for a reason, and hearing that wasn’t it.” As he spoke, he was turning his head to look at one of the clocks upon the wall, and once he turned back he was counting something out on his fingers, clasping his hands together when he was done. “It looks to be about the time when we take our guests out to the airport, and this is a two-man mission. Frederick, I need you to come with me.”

“W-what? But Chrom, sir, this is a night of celebration that I actually get to spend with my wife. Is there anyone else you can take with you?” Normally Frederick was not one to argue against what Chrom wished, understanding that their friendship and their workplace relationship made his agreement virtually guaranteed, so for him to put his evening with Maribelle before his job was enough to put a smile on her face, and she snuggled up to him a bit more. However, Chrom gave a quick shake of his head in return. “Then you will be bringing both myself and Maribelle as your companions for the trip.”

“Can’t do that, and you know that. She’ll have to stay here and interact with everyone else by herself. We’ll be gone for an hour, tops. Not that big of a deal.” Chrom put his hand on Frederick’s shoulder and gave it a strong pat. “You can manage this.”

Maribelle had every intention of stepping in there and arguing, but as she opened her mouth to start berating Chrom for his dumb decision, Frederick put a finger to her lips and spoke for himself. “I am well-aware that I can manage this, but I am saying that I chose to spend this night here with my wife, and not actually working like you are insisting I do. Find someone else or break protocol and go by yourself.”

“Normally when you say ‘someone else’, you imply Robin, and I’m not taking him. He finally gets a night out without his kids, and I’m not messing with that.” The small motions Chrom made in Tharja’s direction were to discreetly point out the other reason why taking Robin was a bad idea, but the only one to notice them was Tharja herself, and she glared at Chrom for it. “Er, just agree on going with me so we can get them out of here and not waste too much time.”

After spending a handful of moments sharing pleading looks with Maribelle, who was still cuddling closely to him, Frederick took a deep breath and unwrapped himself from being around her, much to her dismay. “You’re right, sir. Let’s get going so we can spend as much time as possible back here.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear. Henry, Tharja, it’s been nice having you as part of the Ylissean police family for the past day, but now it’s time for you to continue out on your journey to where you feel you belong.” Chrom motioned for the two he had called out to follow him as he turned and headed for the door, but when he didn’t hear footsteps following he sighed and turned back around, seeing that no one had moved a muscle. “Okay, this isn’t the time for jokes. We need to go.”

“It’s always time for jokes, you mean!” Henry corrected, getting a laugh out before he walked forward, actually passed Chrom, and flung the door open to inspire everyone to follow him instead. He took one step outside and jumped straight back into the building. “It’s freezing out there! Stepped right in a snow pile! Not an _ice_ surprise at all!”

“Don’t you have any other winter puns to make?” Tharja asked from where she was still standing, knowing that Henry wasn’t going to hear her. She looked at Robin, who was focused on Henry and what he had just done, and gave him a somewhat creepy grin. “Oh, Robin, I am going to miss you more than anything. Don’t be a stranger, and remember that I will return someday. That is, after all, what soul mates do.”

She walked off then, leaving Robin to shake his head and look almost pleadingly at Sumia, who was only partially paying attention to what was going on. “I can’t say I’m going to miss having her around here at all,” he said, “because I’ve got you and she doesn’t seem to understand that at all.” His words got no reaction, so he cleared his throat loudly, causing Sumia to blink a few times as she tried to turn her thoughts to what he was saying. “Now we won’t have anyone around to distract us from each other, correct?”

“Right, no distractions from each other,” Sumia halfheartedly repeated, her eyes moving to follow Chrom as he resumed heading to the door, something that Robin noticed, causing him to sigh and shake his head, muttering something about how maybe Tharja wasn’t the distraction after all.

Over at the still-open door, Henry was still laughing to himself about his terrible ice joke when the other three joined him, one rather reluctantly. “Looks like it’s coming down a lot harder than I thought it would tonight. Wish I hadn’t left the chains back at the house, although they really don’t do much on the wheels of a car.” Chrom laughed, stepping out under the awning of the entrance to get a good look at the rate the snow was falling. “I’m not entirely sure that the flight’ll be leaving tonight, in this weather.”

“Well isn’t that an _ice_ —“

Tharja put her entire hand over Henry’s face to stop him from finishing his sentence. “Stop with the overused ice pun. Next time we come to Ylisse in the middle of winter, you better have come up with something new or I will kill you.” Even behind her hand, he could be heard laughing, not taking her threat seriously at all.

“Chrom, I really don’t think us going out in this is a good idea unless we absolutely need to.” Frederick was beginning to wring his hands, joining Chrom outside. “What if we get stranded somewhere, or worse, get into an accident? Christmas is tomorrow, so can we please think about our families and not fellow officers, just this once?”

“You always surprise me when it comes to work matters, Frederick. Sometimes you’re very insistent that things get done the way you want them to be done, because that way is the right way, but then at other times, you want what’s best for everyone, even if it means things get left undone.” Chrom looked down at the pile of snow they were both standing in, a small drift that was a few inches deep. “I’m not going to agree with you because I don’t want to think about fellow officers, but I’m agreeing with you because our families matter too much to risk our lives right now.”

“Wait, so we’re not leaving?” From still inside the door, the corners of Tharja’s mouth turned up. “Excellent. Now I can go back to being with Robin in peace.” Not lifting her hand off Henry’s mouth, but rather steering him to follow her, she headed back to where the others were presumably still standing, which then left Chrom and Frederick standing out in the snow, both looking between each other and the flakes falling from the dark sky.

“If it really is our families your concern lies with, then we should call the party off as well, shouldn’t we? The roads will only get worse if we stay here until the scheduled ending, and I have doubts that your car and Robin’s van can get everyone back to your house safely tonight.” Still wringing his hands, Frederick took a step forward and found himself in a deeper snow drift, one that went up nearly to his knees. “Er, Chrom…?”

“I’m seeing this, Frederick, don’t worry.” Chrom motioned for his friend to come back to where the snow was less deep, and he did, brushing the remnants off of his pants once he was able to. “I’m sure that we’ll be able to all get home safe and sound if we’re here for only a few more hours. And if the roads get to be too much of a hassle, we’ll just have Stahl drive everyone in his big car. He’s one of our bad weather guys for a reason, after all.”

“I hope you’re right on this. Tomorrow is an important day and I would like to get to spend it with who makes it so important.” Finishing brushing off what he could, Frederick turned and went back into the warmth of the building, stomping the rest of the snow off once he was inside. Chrom was quick to follow him, closing the door behind them both, and when they were not snow-covered and their feet weren’t going to be leaving behind large, wet footprints, they walked back over to the group they had been part of minutes before.

Before anyone got the chance to ask what was going on, Stahl came bolting into the area (it was more of a jog than anything, but it was faster than anyone else was thinking of moving), a stack of papers in his hand. “I don’t mean to make this party not so festive, but there’s a problem,” he panted, stopping right beside Chrom and waving the papers around. “Lots of wrecks out there tonight. Apparently it’s another freak snowstorm? I wasn’t sure if I should believe that or not because the weather people said it would be only a few inches.”

If looks could kill, the one that Frederick shot in Chrom’s direction right then would be enough to murder several people. The blue-haired man, knowing that he was getting a death glare from the person he had just told that nothing bad was going on, sighed and took the papers from Stahl’s hand, reading them over as quickly as he could. “Yeah, this looks like several accident reports that we can’t do anything about because our squad cars aren’t meant for bad weather. Ylisstol’s not meant to have harsh winters like this! We can’t prepare for snowstorms like this one!”

“And what was that about us all getting home safely tonight?” Frederick muttered, earning Maribelle’s attention when she heard him. She tilted her head slightly as if asking him to explain, and he pulled her in close to him, brushing her hair away from her ear so that he could quietly tell her the entire situation before anyone else did.

“I’m sorry, Chrom! I’d be down for going out and helping everyone, but there’s nothing I can really do tonight, not without all the other seats in my car,” Stahl said, kicking the ground a bit. “I, er, may have taken the back seats out so there’d be room for me to take home all the extra treats from this party tonight. I didn’t know I’d need to run rescue missions or something, I just didn’t!”

Looking at the papers still, Chrom let out a heavy sigh. “It’s fine, Stahl. I didn’t expect you to go out and rescue people, not in the conditions this says are out there. Who would have figured that in the hour since we all got here, it’s snowed that much in town?” He handed the papers back to the on-duty officer, who had an expression of concern, almost as if he wasn’t sure what to do. “Go and contact any news station you can. Tell them to caution the people not to go out tonight. Second major snowstorm in a week, they should know how to handle the roads.”

“You got it, sir!” After giving a quick nod, Stahl was jogging back to where he had come from, leaving everyone who had heard the exchange to wonder what was to happen next, and leaving those who had only known someone had run into the room wondering what was going on at all.

Taking a spot in the middle of the room, Chrom cupped his hands around his mouth and made an announcement that nearly killed him inside to say: “Ladies and gentlemen of the Ylisse police force, I have some terrible news. It seems that our wonderful neighbors from the north have given us a Christmas gift of yet another snowstorm, and the conditions outside have gotten to the point where any of us traveling could result in our deaths. It pains me to say it, but we seem to be snowed in here at the station until morning at the earliest.” There were a few people who groaned in response; someone was heard loudly exclaiming a long curse. No one could be said to have had a positive reaction to the news, especially not after people had to start pulling out their phones to let their loved ones at home know what was going on, even though it couldn’t be argued against that being alive but separated was better than dying trying to get home.

And then there were Frederick and Maribelle, both of whom were not pleased in the slightest with the turn of events, especially not the one who had to be told what was happening by the one who had explicitly been told it wasn’t going to happen. “I think I need to go sit somewhere and just _think_ about how I’m going to be missing my baby’s first Christmas,” Maribelle said, sniffling a bit. “My dear, do you know of anywhere that I can do that where no one will find me?”

“Certainly, and if you wouldn’t mind, I think I’ll be joining you in there. We would be each other’s best company in this moment, you know.” Taking a firm hold on her hand, they walked together down one of the halls and into one of the offices, not caring if anyone knew where they were going, why they were going there, or what they would be doing once there. The door slamming behind them, Frederick took care to make sure it was locked to keep anyone from coming to talk to them, before he leaned up against it, his eyes closing as he did. “This is the worst thing that could have happened here tonight, barring us trying to get home and failing. Perhaps we should have done as Lissa chose to and not come?”

“She didn’t come because she didn’t have a date for the night.” Knowing what she did, Maribelle was certain this was a lie, but she wasn’t going to throw her best friend under the bus like that. “Instead, she gets to be at the house with our baby so she can see to it that he gets a somewhat decent Christmas morning that we won’t even be there for!” Choosing to sit on the edge of the desk in the room, she wiped a few tears away from her eyes, seeing that her makeup was running once she did. “This is absolutely terrible, and I hope that it doesn’t get any worse than this.”

“How could it get worse?” Opening his eyes and looking across the room to his wife, Frederick saw as she shrugged, not knowing how to answer him. “I thought so. Nothing could happen here tonight that would be worse than being stuck here.”

“It’s not being stuck here that’s the problem, though! It’s being stuck here when tomorrow is Brady’s first Christmas and we won’t be spending it with him! There is a distinct difference in those two situations!” Maribelle’s eyes went wide and she caught herself wanting to scream, something that Frederick also noticed and he prevented by coming to her, grabbing both of her hands in his own, and shushing her until she seemed calmed. “Sorry, sorry, I got worked up into a bit of a tizzy there. This is just so horrendous, you know, and I am having quite the time trying to process it all.”

He nodded in agreement, squeezing her hands a bit. “I understand, my love. What a bad situation we’ve gotten ourselves into, and it’s a shame that it’s happened at all, especially on a night like tonight.”

“I’ve already said, being stuck here isn’t the problem.”

“I’m aware you have said that. It’s the timing of the situation that’s problematic.” He leaned in closer to her, kissing her on the lips for a second before pulling back and softly coughing. “However, I also find it quite problematic that you took the time to look so lovely tonight, just for this to all happen. What a waste of your efforts.”

She seemed to be taken aback, especially when he moved to kiss her once more, this time lingering a few moments longer before he broke away. “What are you trying to do, flattering me like that? This isn’t the time for your compliments, although I completely appreciate them and love hearing them. We have more important matters to focus on.” She was right, there were so many other things that they could have been doing and talking about, but deep inside she had known that from the moment they had separated themselves in a locked office, something of this nature was going to unfold. “Unless you propose an idea that isn’t dwell on what we can’t control.”

“It may be completely against workplace rules, but as the station is home for the evening, I would suggest we do some, ahem, breaking in of our territory.” His cheeks were filling with color and she couldn’t help but slip into a fit of giggles, the leftover tears from her bout of emotions falling from her eyes. He let go of her hands for her to hop off of the desk and start helping him with taking off his jacket—and once he was down to having no top on at all, he spun her around to assist her in getting her dress off.

“Never did I think that I’d be so lucky to be getting ravaged by my loving teddy bear in a place like this,” she said, sliding out of her dress and letting it hit the floor, stepping out of it only to be spun back around and taken by surprise by someone kissing her very passionately, pushing her back onto the desk she’d been sitting on before…

* * *

“Are you sure that there’s nothing we can do to get ourselves home?” Robin asked, trying his hardest to focus only on who he was speaking to, rather than the two women standing beside him. “I get it that neither of us have vehicles that can get through the snow, and Stahl can’t drive anyone but himself around at the moment, but there’s got to be someone who can help us out. It’s Christmas tomorrow and you know as well as I do that we need to be back at your house tonight.”

“Robin, look, if there was anything that could be done, I’d be pulling all the strings I could to make sure it happened.” Chrom sighed, running a hand down the side of his own face. “The only other person I know who’s willing to risk their life to drive in this sort of weather has been stuck up in the mountains for almost a week now, so he’s of no help to us. We’re just going to have to accept that we’re stuck here tonight.”

“None of our kids are going to forgive us for this one. We’re going to ruin their holiday because we’re here, and you know it.” Dodging yet another unwanted grab from Tharja, he pointed a finger in Chrom’s direction, shaking it as he did. “You’re either being really cautious when it’s not needed, or you’re just jeopardizing the day for all of our kids because you don’t care.”

Sighing again, Chrom shook his head. “You didn’t read the reports. Even if we’d left right after Stahl came out here and brought the problems to my attention, we wouldn’t have made it home tonight. I’d rather stay here where we have heat and food than out in a freezing car, and that’s even assuming that we’d have just gotten stranded, not wrecking and dying.”

“All I can say is, I hope you’re right on that.” Robin felt something tugging at his sleeve, and he turned to see Sumia trying to get his attention, a concerned look on her face. “You know, you’ve never been afraid to speak up before, dear. Why don’t you just say whatever’s on your mind? We don’t care if it’s negative or positive or whatever, promise.”

“I just don’t want to seem like a bad person for assuming such a thing in this situation,” she replied, letting go of his sleeve, “and I don’t want to worry Chrom more with something else that may not even be true.”

“What are you even talking about?” She gave him a blank look, before using a shoulder to motion towards a spot that, for quite a bit of talking time throughout the evening, had been filled with a loving couple who had keep themselves wrapped around one another. “Oh. Them. They must have gone off to sulk about what had happened, just like I’d love to do.”

Sumia pursed her lips together, before quickly shaking her head. “No, I really don’t think that’s what they went to do. I saw how all over each other they were. I think you should go check and make sure they aren’t doing anything…else, if you know what I mean.” She watched as Robin realized what she was implying, and he took a moment to contemplate doing what she asked before sighing and hanging his head.

“You know what, just for you, Sumia. I’ll go check on them just in case.” Standing tall once more, he looked to Chrom, who was now trying to figure out what was going on, and so as his last action before he went to find where Frederick and Maribelle had gotten off to, he figured he should explain what was going on. “Chrom, Sumia thinks that two of our friends are getting themselves into trouble somewhere, so I’m going to give her peace of mind and make sure they’re just talking or something. I’ll be right back.” With a smile and another sigh, he was headed off towards the hallway of offices.

That left Sumia standing there with Chrom, and the smile that appeared on her face was one of absolute joy and excitement. She hadn’t expected her plan to get Robin to step away to actually work; maybe it was the situation, or maybe it was that he didn’t want to take any chances, but he normally took a lot more convincing to leave her alone anywhere, especially somewhere that Chrom was. He seemed to notice that she was smiling at him, and he shook his head as if trying to get her to not try anything. “Not tonight, Sumia. Bigger things to worry about tonight. Like,” he paused, as his stomach grumbled, “making sure that I remember to feed myself. Just because there’s problems doesn’t mean I don’t need to eat.”

“Oh, wonderful! I baked quite a few pies for the evening, so maybe you could have some of one of those?” She put her hands to her cheeks and waited for Chrom to do what she suggested, but he gave a very non-committed noise and headed over to the food table, and she stumbled to follow him, pressing the issue further as she did. “But, Chrom, I made those pies especially for tonight, so it would be a real honor if you’d have some of one.”

“No thanks, I think I’ll just snack on some crackers or something.” He was moving faster than she was, hoping to get to the table and to grab what he wanted before she could stop him, but there wasn’t enough time for him to get anything before she was right behind him, eyes wide with excitement as she had him cornered against the table. “Er, Sumia, please just let me do what I want.”

“I’m not leaving you alone until you have some pie.” She glanced over at the literal tower of pies she’d baked for the occasion, several of which had already been cut into and enjoyed by some of the other guests at the party. That made her feel good inside, knowing that someone had liked what she had baked, but their opinion was worthless up against Chrom’s, and she was going to get his opinion out of him. “Please? The girls and I, we worked so hard on making sure these were absolutely perfect for yo—for everyone! You have to try a slice!”

He too looked over at the tower of pies and grimaced. “No thank you, Sumia. I appreciate that you took the time and effort to make all of those for everyone, but I’m not feeling like your pie tonight.” As he stared at the tower, he thought of what good reasons he could give her for why he didn’t want to even touch one of the desserts: he had been the one tasked to bring them to the party, filling almost every inch of his car with the pies to make sure they made it safely; he had been regularly receiving pies as gifts from her for years, as a form of her trying to flirt with him, and he’d stopped eating them himself a long time ago, choosing instead to take them home and give them to someone else; but the reason he went with was a little different than that. “I know that tomorrow, whenever I get home, my family will be waiting for me with some sweets of their own, and I want to be able to savor them.”

“Just one slice won’t hurt you. They’re really good, I swear!” She knew she was beginning to sound desperate, but she wanted Chrom’s validation that her baking was good, and she was going to get it no matter what. “I promise that if you have a piece, I’ll leave you alone about it for the rest of the night.”

“I’m sorry, Sumia, but I just don’t want any. Maybe later. And if not later, then I’ll take one home and have it there.” She shook her head, not accepting that answer, and he raised both arms in a questioning pose. “What else do you want me to do? I don’t want any of your pie right now, and that’s that.”

At the same time that they were going back and forth about eating the pie, Robin was checking every door in the building, making sure that the rooms behind them were free of people who weren’t supposed to be there. He had stumbled upon the mess of an office that belonged to Stahl, but as the other man was on three phones at once trying to get a handle on the weather situation, he didn’t notice the intrusion. Once that door was latched closed, Robin sighed to himself, rubbing at one of his temples. “Those two must not want to be found. Gods I hope Sumia was just…” His voice trailed off, and his hand moved to be resting on the entirety of his forehead. “Trying to get me away so she can pester Chrom! I can’t believe I fell for it!”

There was not much he could do at that point to right that wrong, so he continued on with his room-searching endeavor, getting into the wing of the building where the big offices were. After checking his own office to find it vacant as usual, he looked to the one right across the hall from it, with the golden plaque on the door that bore Chrom’s name, and saw that it was already opened. “Ha, looks like there’s nothing to worry about, although them sneaking away to sit in the chief’s office wasn’t the brightest of ideas, even if Frederick is second-in-command around here.” Just to make sure he was right, Robin pushed open the door the rest of the way and found the lights off and the room completely silent. “Or…not? Where the hell are those two?” Putting the door back to how he’d found it, he walked around the corner to where he knew the last unchecked office was, the one belonging to one of the two he was looking for. “I always pegged them both as smarter than going to their own office for this sort of thing,” he said, trying to turn the doorknob but finding it locked. “Bingo. They’re in there.”

Getting in with a locked door would be a problem for anyone else, but Robin knew exactly where the extra keys for all the doors were stored, and after going back into Chrom’s office and grabbing the key he needed, he came back to the door and made the motions to unlock what was blocking him from the other two. “Okay, what is it that you are doing in here?” he asked as he pushed the door open, eliciting a shocked scream and a loud yell to get out from the people inside. He stood, absolutely frozen in place, but he had the courtesy to pull his eyes away from the intertwined bodies on top of the desk. “I didn’t need to know this. I really hope you guys are—“

“Get out!” Their voices screaming simultaneously, it was clear that neither of them rather enjoyed having just been intruded on, and Robin swallowed down and stepped back out of the room, making sure the door was tightly closed once he was out in the hall.

He then proceeded to just stand there, trying to mentally work through what had just happened, when he heard someone’s footsteps coming from down the hall, and he wasn’t sure what he’d manage to say if the person approached him. “What’re you doing all the way down here?” Henry asked with a laugh as Robin came into his line of sight. “The party’s back the other way! C’mon, let’s go back together.”

“What are you even doing down here?” Robin managed to get out, not moving from his spot in front of the door. “Go back to where everyone else is. I have my reasons for being out here, and you don’t.”

“I kind of do. Have to know what this place is like for if we come back to work here. Besides, Tharja was starting to get really weird with her fake hexing of people and I needed some space.” Pretending to stretch, Henry reached out and grabbed Robin’s arm, pulling on it a bit. “You know what it’s like to be around her. Crazy, am I right?”

“Please, just go back. I’ll follow soon enough, once my business out here is done.” Since Henry let go of him, he assumed that he was going to heed those words, which meant Robin could try and get the people out of the office again. He approached this by banging on the door with a closed fist, hoping to spook them. “You two, get out of there, and make sure you’re fully clothed when you come out!”

By the way Henry popped up right next to where Robin was standing, it was clear he hadn’t listened to what he’d been told at all. “There’s people in there that are naked?” He pounded on the door a few times. “Hey, are you guys making babies in there?” There was some more screaming and unintelligible muttering on the other side of the door, and that was when Robin decided that if Henry wasn’t going to head back on his own, he’d have to escort him, even if it meant leaving the two in the office alone.

“You know what, let’s just go back to where everyone else is. I’m sure my wife’s given Chrom an earful by now, and I need to put a stop to that more than anything else.” Taking Henry by the arm (to which the man said something about being manhandled that earned him a glare that silenced his words but promoted his laughter), they started to head back to the main gathering place of the station, leaving the door unlocked and unguarded for whatever might happen.

Back in the main room, what Robin had suspected had happened was exactly the case. Sumia, still having cornered Chrom against the table, had attracted an audience of the people who were still in there, as she tried her hardest to convince him to just have a bit of one of her pies. Despite his protests and denials of doing what she wanted, she was insistent that she have her way. “Do you really want everyone watching this to know that you won’t even do me that small of a favor?” she asked, motioning to the crowd that had formed. “They’ll all think so much less of you for this…”

He looked at who all was standing there, seeing Miriel engrossed in the book she was holding, Cordelia just staring at Chrom with almost lustful eyes but averting her gaze when she saw him looking at her, Gaius munching on his own plate of snacks, and Tharja, just mumbling things to herself. “Er, yeah, so much less. I really will pass on the pie today, thank you though.”

“You can’t just turn down something that someone so lovingly made for everyone, especially not when she’s asking you to have some.” Sumia began sniffling, her eyes attempting to fill with tears. If she couldn’t convince him through words, maybe crying would do the trick. “I just want you to take one bite. One little, tiny bite. Just for me.”

“I would rather not. I don’t know what’s gotten into you tonight, but this behavior is odd, even for you.” Chrom heard Tharja cackle at that, so he looked to her to see her begin to whistle innocently. “You. It’s something to do with you, isn’t it?”

“I would never do something as heinous as hex someone to become obsessed with someone else, just so that I can get what I want. That’s a type of witchcraft that’s beyond me.” Tharja cracked a smile. “However, I would love to try that someday, even if it’s clear that I wouldn’t need to lift a finger here.”

“Well, if you’re not the one causing this, can you at least stop being so weird?” He watched as her smile grew just a bit, which was worrisome to him. “I’m begging you, stop.”

She let out a single whistled note. “Can’t say that I’m able to stop being weird, but I’ll give it a shot for you. After all, if I learn how to do the hexing necessary to make my soul mate mine, I’ll be in debt to you for taking on the burden of the woman standing between me and my Robin.”

Finally giving up on her attempts on getting Chrom to eat the pie, Sumia turned her attention to what Tharja was saying, every word enraging her just a bit until she was positively angry. “He’s _my_ Robin, not yours,” she snapped, “and the only way you’ll be getting him is if I’m dead in the ground!”

“Or if I curse you to pine for someone else for eternity and you decide to leave him. Although, if I’m not mistaken, you’re already stuck with that curse without my intervention.” The creepy, almost eerie, chuckle that Tharja gave was enough to cause Sumia to step closer, although she caught one of her feet on the side of the other and went crashing to the floor rather than becoming intimidating. “And the tripping thing, someone really must have had a field day cursing you to be completely useless.”

As she tried to get back to her feet, the only person willing to help her up being Cordelia, running footsteps could be heard coming down the hall, accompanied with shouting that quickly became able to be understood. “That is the last time I ever listen to anyone, _anyone_ , who tells me that people are doing something they shouldn’t be! And if I do listen to them, I’m going to make sure I have someone with me to do the looking instead!” There was a loud chucking heard accompanying the shouts, which became normal conversation as the two light-haired men made their grand reappearance into the room. “Still wish you had gotten there just a bit earlier, Henry. You could have looked in there for me.”

“Once you said that they were actively in the middle of fu—making babies, I realized how lucky I was to not have,” he giggled a bit, “come even a bit sooner.” At that, Robin shook his head and looked to see everyone else having their attention on them, something that Henry must have noticed when he had self-censored his sentence.

“Did he just say someone was ‘making babies’?” Chrom asked, getting several nods from the people around him. “Oh gods, what did the news of being stranded here _do_ to those two? They get so upset about missing their kid’s first Christmas that they decided to give it another shot next year?”

At first, the reaction was a few stray snorts, but soon a laugh swept through everyone standing there, them finally having found one thing that everyone could enjoy finding humor in. Despite the circumstances and everything that had been happening in the time prior to Robin and Henry returning, the people who had gathered there for the party all started to relax and enjoy each other’s company, becoming one large group of people talking and carrying on, trying to make the best of what had been given to them. It must have been hours before the last two partygoers came back, and their appearance didn’t distract everyone from their conversations like past intrusions had.

In fact, had they not tried to seamlessly reintroduce themselves into everyone’s conversation, they most likely wouldn’t have been noticed. But when two people, one on the other’s lap, suddenly appeared in one of the chairs in the room, it was only natural that the flow of conversation stopped to accept them back. “Hm, looks like you two finally decided to break apart long enough to join us,” Chrom said with a smile, while Robin had to look away from them completely to try and keep himself from laughing. “Welcome back. We’ve missed you.”

“Oh come on, we weren’t gone that long,” Maribelle replied, trying to adjust her dress that had clearly been put back on in a rush. When she gave up on that and met Chrom’s eyes, he could tell that her makeup was a mess, as was her hair, and while it was possible that was due to her crying, it also brought truth to the accusations that had flown. “It was just a few minutes to step away, clear our heads, make the best of this dreadful situation.”

His smile got bigger as he laughed. “That’s a unique way of putting that. Either way, can’t say I’m happy with what you did, but since it wasn’t in my office, I also can’t say that I care too much. I expected more of ‘high-class’ people such as yourselves, but I get it. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“It wasn’t our intention for that to happen,” Frederick started, but his rebuttal was silenced when they all heard a clock beginning to chime, twelve strikes that signaled that midnight was upon them—and the group fell into a silence as they looked between one another, the realization that they really were stuck in the station for the long haul hitting them. A few utterances of “it’s midnight” or “it’s Christmas” could be heard in hushed whispers, and Maribelle did start crying, burying her face in her husband’s disheveled jacket sleeve, the day that should have been one of joy becoming one of regret instead.

Standing up from where he was squatting against the wall to be part of the conversation, Gaius started walking towards the door, prompting Chrom to ask where he was going. “Outside. All this depressing stuff’s driving me to take a smoke break. I know my usual companion for these sorts of things ain’t here, but if any of you want to join me, I’d appreciate it.” It was an acceptable answer, and once he was out the door, Cordelia gave a long sigh, stood up, and went outside as well (not to smoke, everyone assumed, but to keep her “date” company).

The night that should have been of fun celebrating was now getting into the depressing parts that required coping mechanisms.


	9. A Very Unromantic Holiday

The bedroom felt as if it was colder than normal, which had seemed impossible due to it already having been an icebox, but when Sully woke up with her teeth chattering she knew that something was off about the situation. Her eyes not even opened for the day, she rolled onto her side and slammed her arm down on the other side of the bed as hard as she could, hitting nothing but blankets and mattress. At that, everything felt as cold as she did, which meant that she’d been alone in that bed for some time. “I can’t b-believe this,” she said, stumbling over words due to how hard her shivers were. “Damn man ch-ch-checks my phone one day and abandons me the next. What k-kind of guy does he think he is?”

She hurried to get out of the bed, the frigid air even more unbearable when she wasn’t mostly hidden underneath a blanket, and after quickly remaking her side of the bed she was dashing out of the room, ready to get somewhere a bit warmer. Problem was, the rest of the little cabin was also cold, which was the first thing she noticed once she was in the main room. The second thing she noticed was the sounds of something sizzling, as if it were being cooked, and she wasn’t sure if it was her imagining things or if it was real; that was answered very quickly when she looked to the small kitchen and saw Vaike standing there without a shirt and his pants looking like they’d, once again, been resting in a puddle. He didn’t seem to have heard her leave the bedroom, so she was able to just stand there and watch him as he was making something or other, talking to himself while he cooked.

“Can’t believe she ain’t answerin’ me today, even though there’s a good reason for her to. Really beginnin’ to wonder if she’s got a problem with the Vaike, or if somethin’ happened and she just can’t talk to me. Either way, not a good thing at all.” He shook his head, the wet ends of his hair clumping together as they swung side to side. “Guess it’s all for the best that I ain’t at Chrom’s place today.”

“What are you going on about?” she finally asked, stepping into the kitchen and seeing what he was doing, which caught him by surprise. “Hey, you knew I was around. What are you doing up, and cooking?”

He laughed, looking down at what he had in the pan before him. “Figured since it was Christmas, I could do somethin’ nice and make breakfast for ya. I mean, woke up early to try and call Lissa, but the power musta gone out overnight because it was freezin’ everywhere when I got up.” That would explain why the room was colder than normal, she mentally noted, as well as why his side of the bed had gotten cold again. “So, thanks t’you showin’ me where the generator was, ol’ Vaike was able to fix things himself, but kinda got a bit lost in a snowdrift while out there.” He kicked up a leg to show her just how wet his pants still were from that endeavor. “And then I came back in and found what there was to make for breakfast. Hope ya like ‘just-add-water’ pancakes, ‘cause that’s all there is.”

“We’ve been living off of simple things like that all week, I think I can enjoy it.” She watched him flip the fairly-burned pancake and sigh, but she smiled at it. “Hey, don’t get down that you messed that one the hell up. No one’s ever cooked me breakfast before like this, so I won’t be a complainer.”

“What d’ya mean, no one’s cooked like this for you?” he asked her, finding that more interesting than her being okay with a bit of burnt food. “Like, not even your family did this kind of thing for ya?”

She shrugged. “My parents did when I was younger, sure. But after I got too old for that, it stopped, and I’ve never found anyone who gave enough of a damn to do it.” Something she’d talked about with Maribelle the night before while she’d locked herself in the bathroom came flooding back to her, and she decided to bring that up right there. “It’s normally a romantic gesture, I guess, and when you’re not a young girl anymore and still haven’t been in love, you don’t have people cooking you breakfast.”

“I ain’t doin’ this as a romantic gesture, but I get what you’re sayin’ there. To be fair, I _have_ been in love and the last time the Vaike had breakfast made ‘specially for him, it was when he was a kid. Not countin’ the times Chrom’s made me food before when crashin’ at his place, of course.” Vaike flipped the pancake onto the plate sitting on the counter, the other side just as burned as the first one, before pouring new batter into the pan. “It’s funny, been with Lissa for what feels like forever, but it ain’t really feelin’ like we’re together anymore. Not that I’ve gotten to really think about it.”

“You’re overthinking things. Once we get back into town and you’re with her again, it’ll feel like nothing’s happened. And if not, well, she wasn’t worth a damn and definitely not worth your time.” Sully laughed to herself, knowing that she was playing with fire with her words.

“I hope it’s the first one. Ain’t got it in me to go lookin’ for someone to replace her with, not after all the love I’ve given her. She makes this guy feel whole, and losin’ her would just…not be very fun, really.” He tapped the ground a few times with his foot, looking for what he wanted to say next. “That’s not a feelin’ I know, losin’ a lover. Haven’t had it happen before, don’t wanna have it happen now.”

There were so many things that Sully could have said, knowing what she knew thanks to Maribelle calling her to talk. She could have mentioned how Lissa was most likely in the arms of another man as they spoke, or how the reason she wasn’t answering his calls wasn’t because of something having happened to her phone, but because she just didn’t care. But she knew that breaking that news to him wasn’t her place, despite how badly she wanted to just drop that information on him and watch him react. “I don’t think anyone ever wants to lose someone they love,” she finally said, thinking over her words carefully. “Maybe that’s why I’ve never fallen in love before, because I don’t want to face the reality that whoever I decide to give my time will most likely put me through hell and break my heart.”

“Not every guy, or lady, whichever you prefer, is out there to break hearts. I know that I’d never wanna break someone’s heart if I had a choice. The Vaike ain’t that kind of guy.” He flipped the pancake he was cooking and listened to it sizzle a bit, the noise filling a silence that was left from the lull in conversation. “All I know is, most people don’t wanna break hearts but it happens. And I never pegged Lissa as one of those people who wouldn’t mind breakin’ a heart, but it really looks like she is. And…”

His voice trailed off as he couldn’t bring himself to say whatever else was coming, and Sully wasn’t sure how she was supposed to react. She’d never been around someone going through this kind of situation, but at the same time, she supposed that was for the best. The decision she ultimately made in regards of what to do was simple; she stepped closer to him and put one arm around his back and arms, hugging him a bit from the side. “She’s not cheating on you, and if she is, I’ll kick her into next year for hurting a damn fine friend of mine.”

“You’d do that for me?” he asked, giving a slight sniffle as he looked at her, eyes beginning to glisten. “Like, I don’t want ya losin’ your job over somethin’ like this, and I know Chrom ain’t the kind of guy to put work before family so you hurtin’ his sister might just end in you not havin’ a job anymore.”

“Of course I’d do that for you, regardless of what Chrom would think. He’s the one who thought it would be a bright idea to set his sister up with one of his employees, he can deal with it when she makes a dumb decision and deserves to be punished for it.” She pat his arm a bit, hoping that her offer of assistance would calm him down a bit. “Now come on, finish making those pancakes so we can enjoy your cooking together. I’m honestly honored you’d do something like this for me.”

“It really ain’t much of anythin’, but thanks for bein’ honored by it.” He inhaled deeply, but rather than finding a calming comfort in it he was instead reminded that he was actively burning food at the moment and choked on the air. “Gah, see? Ain’t much of anythin’ at all, not when it’s all gonna come out garbage.”

She backed away from him so that she wasn’t interfering with his attempt to fix what had just gone wrong, even though there was no taking back burning one side of a pancake to a crisp. “Still better than I could do,” she said as she plugged her nose to not be taking in the foul aroma. “Trust me, after burning all the toast I could these past few days, I can really appreciate something that takes actual skill to make.”

“No, this ain’t skill. This is water in a container of powder, shaken and poured into a pan, and the Vaike can do that with his eyes closed. Sure you could do it too. It’s actually cookin’ that’s the problem, clearly.” The way the air smelled, it would seem that something was on fire, but it was just a blackened mass of pancake batter that was causing the odor. “No point in wastin’ this one. I’ll do us both a favor and eat it myself.”

“Food’s food, and I’m sure it’s still edible.” Sully laughed, scratching at one of her arms as she did. “Bother checking if they have anything to enjoy that with, in case you can’t stomach it? Don’t think I’d let that damn thing near my mouth unless it was drenched in something.” He shook his head, focused once more on his task, and she looked to the small pantry to see if there was any syrup or anything, finding several bottles of what she was looking for, but also a small bag of sweets that made her stop and think for a moment, something about this discovery hitting her harder than she’d have thought it would.

“Hey, Sully, you gonna snap outta whatever’s gotten into ya and grab your plate?” She wasn’t sure how long she was standing there, staring at that bag, but it was clearly long enough for Vaike to have finished cooking. When she regained focus on her current position and nodded in response, he let out a long laugh. “Well that’s great! C’mon, get to eatin’ before your food gets cold and all that effort goes to waste.”

“I’d probably eat it even if it was cold, honestly. I’m nowhere near as in love with food as some of the guys we work with, but I’m not one for tossing something because it got a little cold.” Giving one last glance to the bag, she grabbed one of the syrup bottles and went to where her little plate of slightly-singed pancakes was waiting for her. Just the sight of a meal made for her by someone who wasn’t herself made her want to smile, even if her mouth didn’t make the motions. “Looks pretty damn good. I’ll have to pay you back for this one someday, eh Teach?”

“You don’t haveta call me that, y’know,” he told her, his voice muffled slightly as he was in the middle of a bite of food. “No one does it ‘sides me, and I only do it ‘cause sometimes, sayin’ my own name just doesn’t feel right.”

“Fine, let me correct myself. I’ll have to pay you back for this one someday, eh Vaike?” Sitting in her spot on the couch, she was able to watch his face light up when she said that, despite the fact that he was still shoveling food into his mouth. “What’s up with all that excitement? Someone telling you they owe you a new thing?”

He gave her a nod, chewing and swallowing everything in his mouth before he spoke. “Oh yeah. Nobody really does that for me. Mostly ‘cause there ain’t much that I’m good at givin’ others, but it’s also slightly ‘cause the people I do stuff for don’t have to pay me back, or they’ve done enough already that it’s me payin’ them back. And if someone does happen to say it, they aren’t serious ‘bout it like you are. You’re not that bad at all, Sully, and I appreciate it a whole lot.”

It may have been the fact that she was beginning to tune him out as she was eating, or maybe it was because things she’d been told the night before were still fresh in her head, but Sully didn’t hear him correctly and thought that, genuinely, he said he appreciated _her_ a whole lot. She froze, fork being held halfway between her plate and her mouth, and she could just feel herself wanting to ask him if he had meant what he’d said. Why did she care if he might have said he appreciated her? He wasn’t flirting with her. There was no reason for him to be doing that, not when he still had a girlfriend back home. Then again, the way he had cooked breakfast for her because said girlfriend wouldn’t answer his calls (even though that wasn’t the full reason) had to mean something, right?

She dropped her fork and let it clang against her plate, before she pushed that aside and stood up. “I need your truck keys,” she hurriedly said, the other thing that had gotten her lost in thought coming back to her. “There’s something out there that I need to get so I can work things out.”

He pointed to where the keys were sitting on a ledge. “Only things I know of out there are my things. What could you possibly have out there that ya need?”

“It’s none of your business.” Her words were a lot harsher than she wanted them to be, and he seemed a bit hurt and offended by how she had spoken to him, to the point that after she had grabbed the keys and was beginning to put her jacket on, he got up and went to block her from being able to get out of the house. “Good thing that there’s the door through the stable that I can use,” she reminded him, starting to head in that direction.

“Why can’t ya just tell ol’ Vaike what you’ve gotta go out there to get? Whatever it is, it’s not that important because you haven’t needed it in days, so just c’mon and spill the secret.” He trailed after her, even though he knew he wasn’t going to get to the other door before she did. “I ain’t gonna judge you for whatever it might be.”

She stopped walking, letting him come up right behind her and put a hand on her shoulder, which she brushed off. They were standing back in front of the pantry, and she shifted her gaze to look at that bag which had distracted her so heavily before. “No, you’ll judge me. Because it’s what you do when we step outside to clear our minds. You just sit back and judge the hell out of all of us.”

He leaned forward to try and see where she was looking, but couldn’t find anything of note in her line of sight—until he thought about what she had said for a second and looked again to the pantry, noticing the sweets. “Oh. I get it. Uh, don’t ya think that leavin’ that sorta thing out in the cold for this long’s not exactly a good thing? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t care much ‘bout those l’il things, but if you’d brought one with ya you shoulda brought it inside so it doesn’t explode all over my truck.”

“I didn’t bring one of those _pens_ with me.” Sully closed her eyes and could vividly imagine standing outside the police station’s back door, her leaning against the wall with Gaius next to her blowing smoke rings after inhaling from his little candy-flavored device, a memory that was only making her want to go out to the truck more. Her next words spilled out of her mouth: “I just happened to have brought a gods-damn pack with me in case I got stressed out about something or other, and I’ve managed to resist this long but I can’t anymore.”

“Wasn’t aware that someone makin’ ya a meal would stress ya out so much, but if you feel you’ve gotta do it, go on ahead. I said I ain’t gonna judge, so go on.” Hearing him give up without a fight was odd, because Vaike was known as being the kind of guy who didn’t just let things happen, but him not resisting made things a lot easier for Sully. She turned and looked at him, a small smile on her lips, before she made her way out the door, through the stable, and out into the sunny daylight. The snow drifts were piled high, but everything around her was visible and she could make out her destination with no real problems; getting to the truck, however, was an adventure and by the time she got there she was nearly covered in snow from head to toe.

“Never answering a phone call from Maribelle again,” she muttered to herself as she unlocked the truck and got inside on the passenger’s side, closing the door so that she could reach into the pocket on it to find what she was looking for. Why she had actually put the half-empty pack of cigarettes there, she wasn’t really sure, but it was about to come in handy. Re-opening the door, she grabbed the lighter out of the pack as well as one of the cigarettes, then lit the end of the paper and let it burn for a few moments. “Can’t handle this damn stuff. I’m not the kind of woman who relies on men. Never have been. Never will be.”

She watched the paper and its contents turn to ash and she flicked the ashes into the snow, knowing that they would cause no harm that way. “Can’t believe she said that I need to date that guy. He’s great and all, but he’s taken, no matter what she claims and he’s starting to think. And I’m not a dater. I don’t date.” By then, half the cigarette had burned and she hadn’t so much as moved to actually smoke it properly, something that didn’t seem to be a problem. “I’m just one of the guys. No interest in them as anything more than friends.”

The ashes she was flicking were melting a small portion of the snow, and once she was down to the very end of the cigarette she threw it down into the snow as well, letting it sink a few centimeters before she lit another one and let the cycle repeat itself. “And for her to say that last night, and him to do this cooking me breakfast thing today, it’s just all too much. Not a romantic person. Not into it. She’s delusional and he’s losing his mind. I’m not going to date him, I’m not going to think about dating him, I’m just going to focus on getting home and going back to real life problems.” Talking to herself and letting her problems burn was a good way to let everything out in the open; she knew that once she was back to working and not being stranded in the mountains she’d be doing this a lot with her co-workers, in particular the one who’d help her with the burning in exchange for a few puffs of whatever sweet-flavored vapor he was smoking that day. “Can’t dwell on anything but what’s coming next.”

But what _was_ coming next? Going back inside and having to face Vaike and suffer through at least the next day, obviously, but what came after that? What was next after they were home and back to their real lives? Would everything that had happened there at that cabin be forgotten, all the stressing he’d done over if his girlfriend still loved him, all the worrying she’d done of what people’s opinion of her would be after this? Would it be like nothing had ever happened? Of course not, but it was natural to contemplate such a thing.

She flicked the ashes again, the second cigarette almost burning to its end, and a long sigh escaped her. “I don’t want this to all have been for nothing,” she muttered, “because while it wasn’t meant to be anything, it became something. And it needs to stay that way.”

“Hey, what are you doing out there? I thought you said you were gettin’ somethin’, not spendin’ all day hidin’ from me!” He was standing at the stable door, hands cupped around his mouth to amplify his voice. “Come back in, please! I know I was bein’ judgmental or whatever before you came out here, but I’m done judgin’ you!”

“Yeah, yeah, like hell you are.” Still, even though she doubted what he was saying, she tossed what was left of the cigarette out into the snow and hopped out of the truck, tumbling into the snow herself as she did. Had it not been for the fact that there was an open door for her to use to right herself, it would have taken a lot longer, or at least someone coming out to help, for her to get back to her feet. “Ok-kay, tired of the s-s-snow now,” she stuttered, shivering as she shook powder out of her hair. “Can’t w-wait to be home.”

He was laughing at what he’d seen (which hadn’t been much, but involved what looked like her falling disgracefully from his truck), and he didn’t stop until they were both inside the stable, the heat causing the snow to melt off of her. “Y’know, there’s much better ways to get outta trucks like that. Didn’t have to jump into the snow like ya wanted to freeze.”

“It wasn’t a jump, it was a stumble.” She crossed her arms over her chest, still shivering a bit. “And I didn’t mean to do it. You called for me, I tried to get back as quickly as I could. That’s all there was to it.”

His smile, occasionally breaking as he laughed more, showed that he wasn’t buying what she was saying, although he didn’t outright say it. “Sure it was. C’mon, let’s get back in the house. Got something ya need t’see. Think you’d appreciate it.” She figured it was something stupid and not worth her time, but when they got into the main cabin and the lights were off aside from a shimmering tree in the corner of the living room, something that hadn’t been there when she’d gone outside, it came as a bit of a shock to her. She looked to Vaike to see if his face gave any indication of how she was to react, but he was still smiling at her. “Merry Christmas and all that, Sully. Sorry you ain’t spendin’ it at home, but here’s not so bad.”

“I don’t think I’m the one who should be apologized to. This is more than I’d get for any Christmas at home.” Her face was heating up, and she was thankful that the lights were too dim in the room for him to be able to notice it. In fact, she was a bit mortified that she could notice it herself—why was he making her blush by being so caring? “Sorry for ruining your perfect Christmas morning that you’d been planning. I’m a damn homewrecker.”

“No way! ‘sides, I’m pretty sure things happen for a reason, and so there’s gotta be a reason why we’re here and not where we thought we’re s’posed to be.” He placed his hand on her shoulder and she hesitantly pushed it off, only for him to do it again. “Thanks for makin’ me realize that things ain’t so bad after all. Bein’ here with you just feels like it’s what needed to happen today, not any of that other stuff I’d planned.”

She was still looking at him, so she saw when his eyes drifted away from her and down to his other hand, which was gripping his phone tightly. “She still hasn’t answered you?” she asked, and he shook his head, eyes narrowing a bit. “Huh. Maybe then it is best that you’re here and not with her.” The temptation to have said “here with me” was almost too great for Sully to resist, and the mere thought that she had almost let that slip made her cringe.

What had happened to burning all these thoughts that were being planted in her mind?

* * *

Lissa let out a long yawn, her eyes heavy with the complete lack of sleep that she’d willing put herself through. Well, that wasn’t exactly the truth, as she had tried to sleep just before sunrise, but no sooner had she gotten comfortable under her blankets had she heard the cries of a child waking up after being put to sleep through natural medication. So rather than sleeping, she’d instead spent the morning taking care of him and waiting for when his parents would come back to relieve her of that duty and maybe let her take a nap.

If she was napping, she’d be able to ignore her phone going off every so often and not feel the slight twinges of guilt every time it happened. She’d already changed the ringtone from what it had been to one of the default ones, and the image that came up was now the unknown caller picture, but she was still well aware of who it was calling her, and it still hurt to be ignoring him. But after the night she’d just had, there was no reason for her to be answering those calls. Why entertain her sort of boyfriend’s idea that they were still together when she could just leave him be and think more about the new guy in her life?

Another yawn, but this one was accompanied by a smile as some of the topics her and Lon’qu had touched on during their hours of talking came back to her. They’d really gotten to know each other well, she thought, especially when he started actually talking and didn’t seem so uncomfortable by being in her presence. By no means were they now together or anything, but she’d felt more in love in one night than she’d felt in all the time that she’d been in a relationship with Vaike. Her face scrunched up as she thought about him by name, some of that guilt coming along with it. He didn’t deserve what she was putting him through, even if she didn’t feel like they were getting anywhere with what they had.

Maybe answering one of his calls wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Talking things out with him, discussing what had gone wrong and what had been right, it would have been a great course of action, but Lissa was too tired to really consider it. She just wanted to sleep and to dwell on the great overnight hours she’d spent sitting and talking with Lon’qu about themselves and their lives. At one point, somewhere in the early morning, he’d mentioned how talking to her in such a way was a bit odd, because of how she was already taken by someone, and she shrugged it off because she didn’t feel it was relevant, and now there she was, sitting in her old bedroom with a child that wasn’t hers next to her, thinking about how she didn’t belong to that someone anymore.

“Why is love stuff so hard?” she asked, her voice reaching high-pitched and slightly whiny tones. “Why can’t it just be as easy as playing games or reading a book?” She looked next to her, at the child sitting there with wide gray eyes staring back at her, and her face scrunched up a bit more. “I bet you understand love really well, Brady. You’re just a baby, and you love everyone and everyone loves you right back.” At the sound of his name, he smiled, mouth wide open and his few teeth visible, and she laughed. “Yep, everyone’s gotta love a cute kid like you. Everyone does not, however, have to love an adult like me.”

Why would anyone want to love someone like her, she wondered, when she was nothing more than a problem. She had spent years with one guy, just for her curiosity and the perfect timing of said guy being trapped somewhere far away to get her interested in another. She shouldn’t have spent the last night talking to Lon’qu, she just shouldn’t have! She should have been spending the time answering her boyfriend’s calls, listening to his goofy voice and his uneducated speech patterns as he explained to her what was going on. Although, from what little she knew, he was probably getting up close and personal with whatever woman that was he was there with, so could anyone blame her for wanting to put him in the past?

At the same time she yawned once more, the door to her bedroom came flying open, startling her and the baby beside her. As Brady began whimpering at the surprising change in the environment, two blue-haired kids came into the room, jumping up onto the bed and staring at their aunt with wonder in their eyes. “Auntie Lissa, why’s the baby still with you?” Lucina asked, shifting her focus for a second to the whimpering child. “Did his mom and dad give him to you for Christmas?”

“No, Lucy, his parents are just…” Lissa’s voice trailed off as she tried to remember why she was still in charge of watching the child. One of the things she’d done the previous night was tell herself that once everyone came home, she’d go up to bed, but since she didn’t go to bed until sunrise they clearly hadn’t come back. Had anyone ever told her why that was? “…well, actually, I don’t know what’s up with his parents. But I promise, Brady still belongs to them and not me. No cousins for you yet.”

 _Yet_. That was such a weird thought for Lissa to even have, but there she was saying such a thing. “Oh, okay. So when’s it present time?” Back to her original expression of wonder and awe, Lucina’s eyes met with her aunt’s and she gave a pleading look. “Is it now? Can it please be now?”

“Please?” Drawing his word out multiple syllables longer than needed, Inigo clasped his hands together in front of him and pouted out his lower lip, which after his tumble down the stairs the night before looked to be in pretty good shape. However, when he opened his mouth to repeat his begging, Lissa could see the large gap in his mouth from where his top two teeth had been knocked out. “We are being good kids, so please?”

“I don’t know why you’re asking me,” she finally said, looking between her niece and nephew as they continued with their pitiful looks to try and get her to agree to what they wanted. “I’m not your mom. Why don’t you go ask her?”

“She says not until Dad comes back, but I don’t think he’s coming back.” Lucina began to do what her brother was doing, pouting to try and get the answer she wanted. “So if you say yes, then she’ll have to do it! Please, for us?”

She may have been tired, but Lissa knew that letting these kids do their Christmas thing without Chrom being around was going to be a huge disaster, so she firmly shook her head, and when they both gave disappointed sighs, she grabbed the baby sitting right next to her and put him on her lap. “Can’t do it, not with this little guy here. Wouldn’t be fair to him if he had to wait for his parents to get back but you didn’t. And what about those other girls? They don’t even have presents here. They’d be so sad.”

“It’s okay, those meanies are still sleeping,” Lucina said, while Inigo sagely nodded, “so they don’t matter! Just let us open presents, please?”

“Pretty sure they’d wake up if they heard you two celebrating what you got. How about this, we go downstairs and I’ll let you each open one of the presents I got you, but that’s it until everyone’s back and we can do this right.” It was a compromise the two kids agreed with, and after many thank yous were expressed, they were running out of the room and down the stairs to wait for their aunt to meet them there. She didn’t move, though, instead looking at the kid she was holding. “Well, Brady, looks like I’m not trying to sleep after all. You kids win this time.” He didn’t do anything but babble at her, and if he was capable of words, she was sure he’d be telling her that it was her fault she didn’t sleep in the first place.

Or maybe he wouldn’t, since he was just a baby, and as far as she knew he didn’t have any problems with her. After setting him aside again so she could get up and put some clean clothes on to look presentable, not even worrying with her flat pigtails that were a reminder of her long night, she was picking up the baby once more and heading out of the room, ready to go regret her decision to let those kids open a present. But as she passed the slightly-ajar door of the room Lon’qu was staying in, her steps came to a halt and she peeked into his room, wondering if he’d been able to get to sleep. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, legs crossed and his eyes closed, deep in thought about something.

Before she had the chance to back away and leave him be, he spoke. “Lissa. You’re awake early.” His eyes opened and he was staring straight at her, which made her tense up and push the door open more so that she could see him better. “Would have figured a woman like you would enjoy her beauty sleep.”

“Yeah, trust me, I would have loved it, but…” She wiggled the child in her arms. “Babysitting duties have to come before me sleeping. Can you imagine what Maribelle would have done had I let her baby cry and didn’t do anything to help him out? She would have killed me, probably!”

“Seeing as she’s a terrible mother, I wouldn’t think so.” He uncrossed his legs and stood up, stretching once his feet were firmly planted on the ground. “You clearly show more compassion for her child than she is capable of. However, you should have let him cry and focused on yourself. She would understand.”

As he spoke, he was motioning towards his pocket, and she realized that he was implying he would have just given the baby more of that medicine stuff from the night before. “No, no, we didn’t need to drug him again. I took care of things, and even if I’m super tired now, it’s all okay because once people are home and I’m not watching kids anymore I can go curl up and sleep for a day or two.” Under her breath, she added, “And I think I’m going to need to sleep through tomorrow, so it works out.”

“Then let us hope that everyone gets back at a decent time today, because like you, I have not slept after our conversation and I could use the rest.” Lon’qu stifled a yawn, but his act of almost-yawning caused Lissa to actually do it, and they both smiled after. “Maybe it would be for the best if I stayed in here, so that I don’t cause you to be more tired than you already seem to be.”

“No, please, come downstairs and keep me company. I’d rather spend time talking to you and getting more tired than being down there with just the kids.” Now it was Lissa’s time to start begging, but before she could even put on her pout Lon’qu was agreeing to her wishes and coming closer to where she was standing. He towered over her, so much that she was having to tilt her head back a bit to look up at his stern face and dark hair that made him so mysterious and alluring. Why hadn’t she ever noticed before the other day how great he was to look at?

“Stop staring at me,” he said, and she shook her head and blinked back into reality. “I may enjoy you more than most women, but you still make me slightly uncomfortable.”

Her eyes cast downward, towards the baby she was holding that was reaching out towards Lon’qu. “Okay, fair enough. I’ll just focus on Brady and not you, if that’s okay and makes you feel better.”

“Not quite what I meant, but as you wish. Now what is it that we’re doing? Going downstairs and watching the other children?” When she nodded, Lon’qu did the same, motioning for her to leave the doorway so that he could exit the room and start heading for the stairs. She was a bit confused (why was he deciding to lead her?) but she followed him down, the sounds of excited children chatting between themselves getting louder and louder as they approached the main floor. Once they were downstairs, it was obvious that the two girls who had been sleeping were awake, and that the four kids were now interacting with each other.

It might have been a hint that disaster was to strike at any moment when the first sentence they could clearly hear, coming from one of the twin girls, was “Just because our parents aren’t here doesn’t mean that we’re bad kids,” followed with the sound of something crashing into the wall. Lissa and Lon’qu looked between each other, before she sighed, offered Brady over to him, and once her arms were free of the child she’d been watching she was going to investigate the yelling.

As she was walking to see which kid had been pushed into a wall by another angry child, it dawned on Lissa that she had just done something she’d never done before. She had just given a child she was caring for to a guy who didn’t have kids of his own, and there wasn’t any regret in the decision. All the times she’d watched Brady while Vaike was around, she never once had passed the child off to him for even a moment, because she couldn’t trust him to not hurt the baby. But Lon’qu, he could be trusted. He seemed to know how to take care of kids, and that made all the difference. “Oh my gods, I need to stop thinking about this stuff,” she said out loud, softly slapping herself on the forehead. “I’m too tired to get into the details of guys I like!”

“Auntie Lissa?” It was Lucina’s voice, and she sounded scared, so unlike how she’d been while upstairs. “Is that you? Please say it’s you. You need to see this, not my mom.” When Lucina was worried of her mom seeing something, Lissa knew that it was bad, because Olivia was one of the most passive people in the world and if she was going to have an unwanted reaction to something, there was no chance of the situation being a good one.

Except, when Lissa got to where the kids were in the dining room and found that Inigo had pinned the short-haired twin up against the wall, tears in her eyes as he glared directly in them, it wasn’t that the situation was bad. It was that Olivia would have put a stop to it because she didn’t want her son fighting. “Um, miss Lissa,” the other twin, the pigtailed one, started, coming to her side and motioning for her to get down so the little girl could whisper in her ear, “my sister was being a big meanie to Inigo again and she needed to be pushed like he was. He’s too nice for her to be so mean.”

“What even happened here? I thought Lucina and Inigo were coming down here for presents, not to get into fights.” Standing back up and ruffling the mousey hair of the girl she had just talked to, Lissa looked to her niece for an answer. “Okay, Lucy, what’s up?”

“They were awake when we came down! Morgan said something very not nice, I got mad, Inigo got mad, poor Cynthia got picked on again, so Inigo stood up for her and called Morgan a bad kid.” Lucina put a finger to her chin as she thought about what else had happened. “Then she said _they_ weren’t bad kids, and he pushed her into the wall and that’s all.”

“Cynthia’s not a bad kid,” Inigo quietly said, still glaring into Morgan’s eyes, “but this one is. I don’t like meanies like her.”

“I-I’m not a m-meanie!” Morgan stammered, choking back tears as she did. “I just d-don’t like you being nice to my sister! Boys are icky and yucky! We don’t need boys, ‘cause boys are no fun! We just need to be sisters!”

Still standing beside Lissa, Cynthia shook her head. “I like Inigo! He’s fun and sweet and nice to me, and my meanie sister isn’t!” She turned to look up at Lissa. “I can say my meanie sister isn’t fun, right miss Lissa?”

“Uh, yeah, but why would you want to?” Lissa looked between all the kids, from Cynthia right beside her, to Lucina watching everything with wide eyes, to Inigo pinning Morgan against the wall. “I mean, I get it, siblings aren’t always fun, but I don’t know why you’d want to call your sibling a meanie just because she wants to protect you. I wouldn’t call Chrom a meanie if he tried to keep someone away from me.” She heard mumbles from all of the kids about how that might have been right, but no one made any movements or changes to their current actions, so she added, “Besides, it’s Christmas! We should all be loving and nice today, not picking fights!”

“What was that about fights?” Soft-spoken as always, Olivia happened to walk into the room as Lissa had said the last few words; she wasn’t expecting to see her son pinning someone against the wall, but her reaction to it was completely unexpected. “Oh. Getting payback for what happened last night, Inigo? Please don’t make her bleed, that was not a fun mess to have to clean up.”

Something about his mom approving of his actions made Inigo jump back and let Morgan go free. “I was just making her stop being mean, momma. No blood, promise.” He grinned at her, that giant gap in his teeth incredibly noticeable, and she laughed, opening her arms for him to run into them. “It’s Christmas and I’m a nice boy. No fights for me.”

Morgan slid down the wall, covering her face with her hands and breaking into loud crying. At the sound of her twin crying, Cynthia left Lissa’s side and went to sit beside her sister, wrapping her in a hug when she did. “I’m a bad kid,” Morgan choked out between sobs, “and my parents left me here because of it!”

“Not true! They just didn’t come back for us. We aren’t bad kids.” Cynthia was starting to cry as well, her voice shaky while she comforted her sister. “I promise, we are very good girls and they will come back.”

“But w-w-what if they don’t? Then we don’t have a mom or a dad!” Everything Morgan said after that was unable to be made out, and whatever Cynthia’s response was had the same problem, as they were both crying as they hugged, letting out their emotions about being left at the house overnight.

“I think they’ll be awfully surprised when their parents come walking in through that door any minute now,” Olivia said, her arms wrapped around Inigo as she held him closely to her. “That’s why I came out here, because Chrom called to let me know they were finally confident enough in the safeness of the streets to try coming home. It’ll feel like Christmas again in here very, very soon.”

“Why’s it called Christmas?” Lucina quietly asked, just loud enough for Lissa to hear it. “I don’t know why, but it just sounds weird.” Had she not been so tired, some answer as to why that’s how it was would have come to Lissa, but she just stared blankly at her niece as if she’d just asked an impossible question. The girl, noticing her aunt focusing on her, gasped in surprise, covering her mouth. “I didn’t mean to ask that out loud! It must have sounded so stupid and bad and I’m sorry!”

“It’s cool, Lucy. We all ask stupid questions sometimes.” Walking over to her niece, Lissa put a hand on her head and turned her so that they could walk to the living room together. “Come on, let’s go make good on what I said and have you open a present before your dad gets home.” The girl squealed excitedly and became eager to go with her aunt, and once they got to where the tree and the presents were sitting, they were caught by surprise when Lon’qu was already in there, sitting on one of the couches fast asleep with Brady curled up beside him. “Oh my gods, that’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” Lissa said, to which Lucina gave her aunt a confused look.

“I thought you said your boyfriend was the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.” The girl’s voice was hushed, still not wanting anyone to hear what she was saying, and Lissa wasn’t sure how she was supposed to respond to that. She really needed to work on keeping her thoughts in her mind when she was tired, it seemed. So rather than replying to what Lucina said, she just went over to the tree, cast aside a box tagged for her that she already knew the contents of, and pulled out a small package with Lucina’s name on it. If she wasn’t going to answer, she was going to make good on that promise.

The girl was tearing into the wrapping paper when the front door to the house came flying open, banging against the wall as it usually did, and the footsteps of many people entering were heard throughout the house. Had Lucina not been opening that present, she certainly would have ran to see if her dad was home, and since she stayed in place, that meant Lissa didn’t go see who all had come in. There was some screaming and excited yelling from some of the children, mostly Inigo but she could hear those twins rebounding from their crying to get excited at their parents’ return. Then she heard Chrom get incredibly angry about something, which was followed by the loud sound of crying once more.

“Hm. By the way they’re acting out there, you’d think we were gone for more than a single overnight.” The voice caught Lissa by surprise, and she looked to the entryway of the room to see Maribelle standing there, still in the dress she’d left in the night before. “Nothing much could have happened here while we were all gone, right?”

Lissa went to answer her friend, but a yawn caught in her throat and that was what became expressed instead—and at that same time, Brady realized that his mom was back and was screeching in excitement with half-formed words for her to get him. That was enough to get Lon’qu to wake up, but when he opened his eyes he had Maribelle hovering over him, staring him down as if he was a threat. “Hello, miss. Get out of my face, please and thank you, before I am required to use lethal force.” He spoke in a flat tone, one that didn’t make her budge in the slightest.

“I’m only here to get my precious child from sitting beside you, don’t worry.” As she spoke she was reaching out to grab Brady, and once he was safely in her hands she was already walking away. “The nerve on that man, thinking it’s okay to have my child so close to him! What if he catches that horrid rudeness?”

Seeing that Lon’qu was not exactly pleased to hear such things, Lissa hushed Maribelle with a long “shhh” sound. “Don’t talk about him like that, okay? He’s really, really good at watching kids, and he kept your baby so quiet and calm all night that I think he’s even better at watching him than I am!”

“Doesn’t excuse his rude behavior. He threatened me right there, and that is very much not okay! If I were feeling up to it, I would let the law sort out the legitimacy of those threats but,” Maribelle gave a genuine laugh, “let’s just say that I am in no mood to fight with anyone, not after last night. It was a long one.”

“I’m sure it was,” Lissa replied, knowing that no matter how “long” Maribelle felt her night had been, she hadn’t stayed up all night getting sucked into discussion with a new romantic interest. “You guys must have had it rough, sleeping on the floor and away from family.”

“Who said anything about sleeping and floors?” Maribelle winked at Lissa. “We as a group stayed up for most of the night just passing the time talking about what we wanted to do. And when it did come time to sleep, oh, we made sure no one slept on the floor. Desks aren’t as bad as you’d think they would be.”

“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to take all that.” There were so many layers of possible innuendo in that explanation that Lissa was far too tired to make sense of. “I guess I’ll just smile and nod and be happy you’re here.”

More people were coming into the room then, gathering around the tree or finding places to sit on the couches. There were Robin and Sumia, each of them with one of their children being held in tight hugs; Chrom, with Inigo up on his shoulders, and Olivia standing beside him; those two Plegian visitors, arm in arm and looking around at everyone else; Frederick had come in and chosen to grab Maribelle and hold her close to him; and more, people that Lissa had only known through visits over to the police station. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, it looked like almost the entire small police force (minus the two up in the mountains and whoever was working right then) had gathered there.

Finally finished unwrapping the present she’d been given, which was just a box of costume jewelry pieces, Lucina turned to thank her aunt for the gift, but saw everyone standing and sitting around her. Her jaw dropped when she noticed her dad was back home and she threw the present aside and ran towards him, latching herself to his leg when she could. Everyone seemed to be in a lovely mood for the most part, happy to be spending the holiday with this giant group. People came and went, bringing in presents from their own homes so that they could open them with everyone else around. It was a festive moment that couldn’t quite be topped, no matter what.

Somewhere in the middle of all the kids opening all of their gifts, Lissa found herself being embraced by someone, and when she looked and saw that it wasn’t Chrom or Maribelle like she had expected, but rather Lon’qu, she gave him a smile that showed she was okay with what he was doing; when he smiled back, she knew he meant more than just something friendly by it.

That box she had cast aside when digging for Lucina’s present, and the guy who had bought it for her, didn’t cross her mind again for the rest of the day.


	10. And To All a Good Night

The room was an icebox as it usually was, but the past few mornings when Vaike had woken up, he hadn’t been so darn cold. It had typically been him waking up, arms wrapped around his companion to keep her warm, followed by him rolling onto his side of the bed and regretting what he had done in his sleep. But this morning, this lovely and fantastic morning that should have been being spent waking up anywhere but there, he was alone in the bed with the covers thrown down to the far side.

There was one other notable thing about the situation that came to him as he was getting up and making sure he looked at least somewhat presentable in the clothes he’d been wearing for a week—the air smelled incredibly strongly of something burning. Even with the door to the bedroom closed tightly, it seemed like smoke was seeping in from underneath it, which was only moderately worrisome. Had he forgotten to turn the lights off on the tree the night before, and had they caught fire? Was he responsible for the house that had kept him safe for a week being burned to the ground? Was _that_ why he had woken up alone?

The fear of a fire happening in the house was enough to make Vaike quite literally run out into the main part of the house, where the air was thick with smoke but there seemed to be no source of flames. “What’s goin’ on out here?” he asked, head turning wildly to investigate the scene. “Where’s the fire?”

“Oh, great, you’re awake.” Her voice flat and unimpressed, Sully spoke from somewhere in the black cloud that was filling the room. “Then again, should have expected that with how many damn times I’ve set the alarms off in here. Told you I can’t cook.”

He coughed a bit as the smoke began getting to him, but through hearing her voice and knowing the layout of the house a bit, he soon came to be standing beside her. She had something cooking in one of the pans on the stove, although what it was couldn’t even begin to be made out. “Er, yeah, ya kinda did do that. So why bother tryin’? Feel like ya gotta impress ol’ Vaike or somethin’?”

“No way. Impressing you didn’t even come close to crossing my mind.” Inhaling deeply and choking on the smoke, Sully tossed whatever it was she had been trying to cook aside and shook her head. “I was just trying to make your birthday a bit more bearable. You know, since you’re up here with me and not where you want to be? Thought it would be a nice thing to do and I screwed it the hell up.”

“Comin’ from the woman who’s managed to burn toast, it ain’t that surprisin’ that you weren’t able to make anythin’ edible here today.” Without thinking, he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a little pat. “But it’s okay, the effort’s what matters. Now how do we get smoke outta a house like this?”

She tried to shrug him off, but he wouldn’t move. “I don’t know, okay? Not like it matters. I’m cooking you breakfast today and that’s the end of it. So let’s just let it stay smoky in here, because we damn well know that I’m just going to make things worse.” Putting her pan back on the stove, she reached blindly towards the counter for something and, after getting her hand on it, brought it close to her face for inspection. “I was never aware that making these damn things would be so hard.”

“What even is it?” he asked, leaning in closer so that he could see the mystery item, which was just a plain egg. “Eggs? Ain’t got the slightest clue how to make eggs. Never done it.”

“Some help you are,” she replied, once again trying to get out from his grasp. He obliged to her body motions, stepping back a bit so that everything in front of her was completely obscured by the smoke. “I’ll figure it out myself, I suppose. Just thought that it would be a nice change of pace from toast and your pancakes yesterday.”

“It would be nice, if either ‘a us knew how to make ‘em. Why don’t you—“ He was going to suggest that she try making something else, but the sound of an egg forcefully hitting the bottom of something metal caught him off guard. “—didja just throw the whole egg into the pan?” She gave a small grunt of agreement. “Without crackin’ it?” Another grunt. “Well there’s the problem then, Sully! Everyone knows that you’ve gotta crack the eggs before cookin’ ‘em!”

After that revelation, which she swore up and down she’d never heard before (“Why are boiled eggs a thing then?” she asked multiple times, to which Vaike could only laugh), they were able to make a somewhat edible breakfast of scrambled eggs that tasted only moderately smoky and had only a few pieces of shell scattered throughout them. She was a bit bitter that she hadn’t been able to do it on her own, but he seemed more than happy to have been able to help her out. “So, okay, gotta ask. Why’d ya decide you were gonna make breakfast today? It ain’t anything special like yesterday.”

“Has the time away from others messed with your head or something?” She pointed the tines of her fork towards him, and he shrugged. “Today’s the twenty-sixth. Day after Christmas. Pretty important day for one of us.”

His face, which had been wearing a bit of a smile, fell into a deep frown. “Oh, you remembered what today is. Figured you’d have forgotten like everyone else seems t’have.”

“Why are you acting like me remembering your birthday is a bad thing? I figured it would be a damn fine thing for me to make you breakfast, since you did so for me yesterday, and the fact that it’s the big day for you means that it should just be better?” His frown managed to deepen a bit more, and she slowly realized what was getting him so down. “It’s because she hasn’t called to tell you anything, isn’t it?”

“It ain’t too much for a guy to wanna get to talk to his girl on his birthday, is it?” He turned his head so that she couldn’t see his face. “Y’know, after having spent a week up here, you’d think that the Vaike would get it that she just doesn’t want anythin’ to do with him anymore, but he’s still holdin’ on to the hope that she does.”

For a moment, it seemed like Sully was going to say something to crush his dreams on the matter forever. She opened her mouth and drew in a sharp breath, but let it linger a moment too long and the words fizzled out before they could be said. “I…hope she does too,” she said, shifting her eyes up to the ceiling as if she were pleading to some above deity for strength in the situation. “I don’t like seeing you down like this. You really love her, and she better love you back even half as hard. Otherwise, I am kicking her ass so hard she wishes she never messed with you.”

“Thanks, but ya know why you can’t do that. Can’t lift a finger towards her without gettin' Chrom’s wrath, so just let her be. I’m sure she’s,” he gave a cough, trying to mask whatever he had originally wanted to say, “well, havin’ fun with whatever she’s doin’ to keep her mind off ‘a me.”

“I’m sure she isn’t having much fun at all.” There was something about the way that Sully spoke that made Vaike believe her, something about how real and truthful she sounded, but when he looked back to her and saw her with her eyes closed and fingers crossed, he knew that she was just making guesses.

“Okay, ya don’t have’ta tell lies to try and cheer a guy up on his birthday. You think she’s doin’ things she shouldn’t be? Don’t be sayin’ things that’ll get ol’ Vaike’s spirits up. Just gonna make seein’ her again that much harder.” He watched as she uncrossed her fingers and moved her eyes to being fixated on him once more. Once they were holding eye contact, he added, “Please don’t make it harder than it’s gotta be.”

She set her fork down at the same time that she used her other hand to grab her phone. “Oh, I could make it a hell of a lot harder if I wanted to. Thing is, you’ve grown on me as a friend and I don’t want to see you hurting. Trust me, if I had every intention of making a damn scene out of this drama, I would tell you what all these calls I’ve had in the time we’ve been here have been about.”

The determined and serious expression she took on as she started scrolling through her phone’s call list made his heart sink. “Y-ya mean that you ain’t been chattin’ up with Maribelle about her man and how he ain’t right for her?” he half-seriously asked, knowing that it wasn’t what had been talked about at all. He may not have known specifics about any of those phone calls, but he knew enough to know that thinking it was Maribelle calling to complain about her husband cheating on her was only lying to himself. “C’mon, just give it to me straight. The Vaike can handle a bit of bad news.”

She shook her head. “Not today. Maybe tomorrow if you really want to hear it, but I’m not putting a damper on your birthday because I can’t keep my damn mouth shut about news I shouldn’t even know.”

“Day’s already got a pretty big damper on it, but thanks for carin’, I guess. Means that, rather than worryin’ about if she’s gonna call or not, I can think about what there is you could possibly have to say, but I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad one.” He gave a forced laugh, trying to bring himself to be happy. “We ain’t got that much longer up here, do we?”

“As long as things haven’t gotten worse out in the real world, they should be coming to plow the road tomorrow. We might be going back to our lives in the morning, and it’s about damn time that it happens.” Casting her phone aside, Sully gave it a side-eyed glare. “I don’t know if I’d be able to handle much more of being told everything through a middleman. Rather enjoy hearing all the events for myself, not by someone who was told them.”

He didn’t immediately respond to her, not out of not hearing her but instead because he was so wrapped up in trying to figure out what was going on for himself. He knew she’d been talking to Maribelle, who was most likely spending all her time with Lissa, so in this situation, he could only assume that Maribelle was the middleman. But what was it that she could possibly be passing along to Sully, and what made it so important that he didn’t need to be told it on his birthday? After mulling this over for quite some time, during which his food went cold and there was enough time for his companion to go out and feed the horse, he realized that, deep down, he knew what was up. He knew that there was some sort of infidelity going on with one side of the relationship, but he didn’t know if it was real or just being assumed.

“We ain’t a thing, are we?” he finally asked out loud, catching Sully by surprise as she had moved on from the conversation they’d been having over breakfast. “Them back home, they don’t think we’re together and that I’m cheatin’ on Lissa with you, right?”

She could only shrug. “Can’t say I know the answer to that second question, Vaike, but I do know that we definitely aren’t together. Just friends.”

“But d’ya think Lissa thinks that I ain’t happy with her, and that I wanted to get with you instead? What if she’s moved on ‘cause she thinks I have?” Again, all Sully could do was shrug, unsure of how to answer what was bringing Vaike down. “C’mon, you’ve gotta know somethin’ to help the Vaike figure out what’s goin on! You’re tellin’ me you’ve had all those calls with Maribelle and she ain’t said a word about why Lissa’s not answerin’ me?”

“Still not telling you any of this because it’s your birthday. Just because you’re getting passionate doesn’t mean that I’m going to cave in like a little bitch and spill all the secrets. Even though, really, she never said much.” With where she was standing, looking out a frosty window, it was impossible to see what sort of expression Sully was wearing as she spoke, so Vaike got up from his chair and got right next to her. That way, he could see that she was sort of absentmindedly staring in no real direction, the bright reflection of the window shining on her. “You don’t have to get into my face to see if I’m lying.”

He stepped back a bit, before sighing. “I know. It’s just hard, knowin’ that you know more than I do, when it’s me that this all deals with. I just wanna know why she’s ignorin’ me. That’s all. Kinda wanted a birthday wish from my lady, y’know.”

“No matter how many times you try, I’m not going to give in and tell you things. Just keep hoping that she just broke her phone or something, and that—“ She was cut off by his phone ringing, playing a ringtone that she hadn’t heard since their first night there, and that he hadn’t heard for even longer. It went on for only a split second, during which he quite literally made a mad dash for where his phone was sitting, but when he got to it, the tone had long since been over. “—did she just call you?”

He stared at the phone he now held in his hands. They both had heard it, hadn’t they? The ringtone he’d set for when Lissa called had most definitely gone off, and they had both heard it when it did. So why was his phone not showing any missed calls or messages? “Er, guess she didn’t,” he choked out, cringing when he heard himself speak. He wasn’t going to let himself get emotional over this. “Guess the phone must’ve just had a hiccup or somethin’, and that ain’t much of a big deal.”

“If it weren’t such a big deal, you wouldn’t have ran like a madman to check it.” She sighed, seeing how distressed this phantom phone call was making Vaike, which inspired her to come up with something to help him get his mind off of what had just happened. “Hey, why don’t you put the damn phone down and forget about her, just for today? She’s not worth your time or energy and I don’t want to see you hurting like this.”

He reluctantly did as she said, setting his phone back on the table it had been resting on, mumbling something under his breath as he did. Once he was back to standing straight and tall, he gave a long, drawn out sigh and rubbed at one of his eyes. “There. Phone’s down. Ain’t touchin’ it again today. Not worth my time.”

“Wasn’t expecting you to listen to me so quickly, but…hey, don’t just collapse into the chair and call it a day.” Sully was going to suggest that they spend their time talking like the first days they’d been there, but her idea had gotten tossed aside when she saw just how hurt Vaike was by the fact that he wasn’t getting to talk to his girlfriend. She felt compelled to honestly tell him why that was, but she couldn’t bring herself to break him more than he already was. For being such a strong and reckless guy, he really knew how to attach himself to someone and become dependent on them.

And because that person wasn’t responding to his attachment, he was crumbling before her, and was there anything that Sully could even do at that point? It had been a week since they’d gotten stuck in that cabin, a week since they really started getting to know each other beyond the required work interactions. She knew he was hopelessly in love with someone back home, someone who quite possibly didn’t love him back, and she also knew that he was trapped in this cabin with someone who might just care about him more than that disgusting little—no. Those were thoughts she wasn’t meant to be having. Not there, not while watching him sit in a chair and stare blankly out into the room, when all he wanted was his girlfriend that he loved so dearly.

He needed his space, and so did she. Before she could say or do anything to make the situation worse, Sully silently walked over to the connecting door to the stable and went outside, finding companionship in that horse that was the entire reason they were stuck there in the first place. Knowing that there was no way anything she could say would be heard by anyone aside from the horse, and that the horse wouldn’t spill her secrets to the world, she began to talk out what she thought of the situation. Curses were thrown in the direction of the wayward girlfriend back home causing so much trouble. Laments of how she was unable to do anything were directed towards Vaike. And reluctant confessions of muddled feelings were made to all; how could Sully have gotten herself involved in this whole mess if she didn’t feel something towards at least one of the people?

After she fell silent and began focusing on the horse, brushing its mane and making sure it was still in good health, she heard the door open and footsteps approaching. “Guess I’ve gotta come say you’re right,” Vaike quietly said, poking his head around the wall to look into the stall. “She really ain’t worth my time, no matter how much I wanna think she is. A real girl would at least talk to her man once while he’s gone, yeah? And she couldn’t be bothered to do that even once, not even yesterday or today! She’s not gonna get to say she’s broken the Vaike’s heart, no way. She ain’t gettin' that sort of pleasure outta this.”

“So what are you going to do? Go tell her you guys are done being together? I’d love to see how that goes over.” Sully laughed at the idea, although on the inside she was completely for it. “Especially if her phone really is broken and she hasn’t been able to call this entire time.”

“No, I couldn’t ever tell her we’re done. Just gotta remind her that ol’ Vaike loves her, and that he wants t’be with her forever. She’ll love hearin’ that and it’ll all be good from there, pretty sure.” He gave a smile that was incredibly fake, making it glaringly obvious that he was lying to himself. But despite how hard she tried, Sully wasn’t able to get him to fess up to the lie he was telling, not for as long as they sat around that day, just talking about what was going to happen when they got home and back to reality.

They fell asleep sitting on the couch that night, her head laying on his shoulder and his hand resting on her leg. It was definitely not a comfortable position to sleep in, but it made waking up to the sound of engines roaring outside the cabin that much sweeter. They’d managed to survive a week up in a cabin, with each other as their only company, and now it was time for them to go out and head home.

After getting the house mostly back into the state it had been in when they arrived, and after making sure that the owners were coming back up to get their horse themselves, the duo trekked out into the snow for the last time, climbing into the truck that had brought them there. “Let’s hope them plows did a good job at gettin' the roads clear, yeah? Don’t need to be stuck somewhere on the road this time.” Starting up his truck, Vaike took in a deep breath and gave himself a nod. “We’ve got things we’ve gotta get t’doing, so no more bein’ stuck.”

“Yeah, things we’ve got to do,” Sully repeated, staring out at the cabin and mentally going over all the things that happened inside its walls, her eyes eventually drifting to just staring at the dash of the truck once there wasn’t anything before her to focus on. The journey home was going to be a long one, and she knew it was going to be filled with him excitedly talking about getting to see his girlfriend and setting things straight with her, which was not anything she wanted to be hearing about. So, whenever the topic would be brought up, she would roll down the window, pull out that pack of cigarettes, and start burning the ends of them for as long as he’d talk. Burning away her worries helped her clear her mind, so maybe the symbolic act of her burning his worries would help him.

It clearly didn’t, because when they got into the city limits of Ylisstol, he was driving them straight towards the house belonging to Chrom. No amount of rapidly lighting and destroying cigarettes could destroy the thoughts and worries about that other woman, it seemed, which made it look like it was about to be time for this messy situation to solve itself once and for all.

She lit the last one as they pulled up in front of the house.

* * *

Maribelle sat on one of the couches in the living room, Brady playing with one of his new toys on her lap, when she heard the rush of people coming down the stairs. It not only caught her attention, but the attention of the child sitting with her, but there was nothing that either of them were going to do about what everyone else was doing. As far as she was aware, they were just moving luggage and bags down from the bedrooms to by the front door, so that when the time came to leave later that day, everyone was ready and not scrambling to get things together. But the sound of the front door swinging open, plus a voice that she hadn’t heard properly in over a week yelling for someone who wouldn’t want to hear it, made her curious about what was going on after all.

“Come along, Brady,” she said, picking her son up and listening to him whine about being interrupted from his playing. “We need to see what they are up to. If the others are back, that means that very ugly things are about to happen, and I want to be prepared for the fallout of what’s to come.” Together they went out into the hall, where the front door was sitting wide open, all the bags from upstairs right next to it, and Chrom was looking wildly from the bags to the stairs, as if he was confused about something that had just happened. She didn’t bother asking him what was going on, because she could definitely assume what had just transpired—instead, she poked her head out the front door and saw a very familiar redheaded woman sitting in the passenger’s side of a truck in front of the house. “Oh! What a surprise! Come in, will you?” she called, catching the woman’s attention.

It took a few moments of hesitation, plus the casting aside of something that was smoking, but Sully eventually heeded Maribelle’s call and came up to the open door. “What do you mean, ‘what a surprise’? You should’ve known I’d end up here somehow.”

“Yes, well, I had some faith that Vaike wouldn’t try and come talk to Lissa, but I guess that faith was wrongly placed.” Stepping back, and stopping her child from reaching out to the newcomer, Maribelle motioned for Sully to come into the house. “We have so much to discuss now that we can see each other, rather than only communicating through the phone. I feel we can get much more done face-to-face than how we were talking before.”

“Damn straight, although,” Sully glanced at Chrom, who was staring at her with nothing but confusion in his eyes, “maybe it’d be best if we did it somewhere that people who don’t know what’s up aren’t watching.”

Maribelle nodded, leading her new companion back to the living room. Once there, they sat down on the same couch as each other, the child being sat between them so he could resume playing with his toy, and the conversation began. “I can’t believe how much has happened since I first called you with that message!” the blonde gushed, putting her hands on the sides of her face and looking at Sully with wonder. “It’s been a hectic week, that’s for sure!”

“Hectic doesn’t begin to cover the half of it. You could have done him a favor and dropped those bombshells on him instead of me, you know.” Sully watched as the excitement drained from Maribelle’s face a bit. “Well, it’s true. Should have figured that I wasn’t going to be the one breaking his heart, not when I didn’t know what the hell was actually going on.”

“It’s gone a lot worse than I could have ever imagined it.” Giving a small sigh, Maribelle shook her head. “Lissa must have become convinced that she was being cheated on—despite there being no reason to think that—and she started getting very close and personal with the Feroxi guest that Chrom and Olivia invited into their home this holiday. So close, in fact, that they have been simply inseparable since Christmas!”

The gesture Maribelle made was not one of any naughty nature, but it still didn’t sit right with Sully. Here this woman was, getting upset that this other girl was getting cuddly with a new guy, when her old guy had been getting cuddly with someone else. “Er, yeah, that’s a shame. Can’t believe they’d do such a thing.”

“You do know what Vaike had waiting for her under the tree, yes? It’s simply disgusting that she went through with this plan, especially on a day when the man who loved her was going to ask for her hand in marriage.” Maribelle ceased her gesturing and put her hands back on her face. “But, the past is the past! Now they’re no longer together and you can—“

“I’m not dating him.” The words came out harsh and fast, as if Sully was speaking just to fill the air, not to say what she meant. Maribelle looked offended to be cut off, but gave a quick nod, understanding what was going on. “I’ve told you this. I’m not the kind of woman for romances, especially not ones with guys who’ve been through this sort of hell.”

“That’s what they all say, but you’ve got a better chance with him than anyone else would, and I think you should go for it. It’ll make all this worth it.”

“I’m not doing it, Maribelle! I’ve said it before, and will say it again a million times again, I’m not going to give in to what everyone thinks I would have done, and I’m not dating him!” Sully banged her hand on the back of the couch, startling the kid sitting next to her. He looked to her with his gray eyes filling with tears, and before she could even apologize he was bawling. “Damn it, I didn’t mean to make him cry…”

Maribelle didn’t say anything, instead picking up her son and beginning to comfort him, but a new voice entered the room. “Ooh, is that the baby crying?” The two ladies looked to the doorway, Maribelle scowling and Sully unsure of who was standing there. Noticing that all the attention was now on him, Henry laughed, approaching them and dropping to his knees before them. “Lemme play with the kid! I love children! Especially ones like him who cry all the time!”

“He does not cry all the time, and besides, I would not let someone like you touch my precious child.” To prove her point, Maribelle held her son a bit closer to her chest, wrapping him up in her arms as tightly as she could. “Now leave us be, will you? Shouldn’t you be going away soon, anyway?”

“Yeah, I guess I should be,” he replied, still laughing. “Kinda why I wanted to come see the kid before I left! Kids make everything better, even the sadness of leaving somewhere that’s been so great to me!” He remained kneeling there for a moment, contemplating what to do, before he shrugged and reached out towards Maribelle. She screamed and turned her upper body so that he couldn’t reach Brady, but touching the child didn’t seem to be his intention. He placed both hands on her stomach and grinned. “You be good in there, little baby, and you better be big and strong next time I come around!”

His cackling when Maribelle yelled for him to leave, accompanied with her kicking at him, made the scene worth it, even though Sully was quite confused at what had just happened. “Uh, anyone going to explain to me why some guy was just touching up on you and talking about babies?” she asked, hearing Maribelle cursing under her breath about everything. “You telling me some stranger knows something about you that—“

“He knows _nothing_! That crass man thinks it’s okay to interrupt a couple while they’re having some private time and then it’s okay to make rude assumptions like that! What nerve!” She cursed a bit more, making sure to cover her son’s ears while she did, and once she seemed to have all her frustrations out, she looked to Sully and exhaled deeply. “That man, Henry, he’s some Plegian runaway who got trapped here for the holidays, and Chrom was so polite as to let him and his friend stay at the house with us. He’s terribly strange and has done nothing but be weird the entire time he’s been here.”

“And he walked into your bedroom in the middle of the night, but still has two working legs and can breathe on his own? Maribelle, I’m impressed.” Sully didn’t notice the expression Maribelle was making, one that showed she was hearing an incorrect retelling of events, but wasn’t going to correct them. “Still doesn’t explain why he thinks there’s another brat growing inside you, but I’ll take what I’ve been given.”

“As I said, he’s terribly strange. Didn’t you hear him talk about babies? It’s as if that’s all that runs through his mind, that and terrible jokes. But enough about him and his interruptions. Let’s get back to discussing this past week in regards to you and Vaike, shall we?” Maribelle was clearly trying to rush past their current topic, and as Sully couldn’t be bothered to care enough to keep it where it was, they went back to talking about what they had been before. “Yes, I get it that you don’t want to be dating someone, but couldn’t you at least give him a chance? I mean, he’s been abandoned by his girlfriend after being with her for years.”

“It doesn’t matter if he’d been alone for years, I just don’t have any interest in dating anyone.” Her cheeks were beginning to light up, not out of embarrassment but rather out of the first hints of anger. “And if you keep insisting that I do something I’d rather not do, there will be hell to pay.”

Rolling her eyes, Maribelle shook a finger in front of Sully. “Not so fast, my dear. Remember when you called me out of the blue one of those nights and we began getting serious into our discussion of all this nonsense? Remember how I chose to tear you down, to drag everything about you as if you were nothing compared to me or Lissa, all because you’d never been in love? And you were getting frustrated but you knew I was speaking the truth? Don’t you remember that?”

“Yeah, hard to forget that when you were going so hard at me that you almost brought me to tears. But then that kid of yours decided your arm was a teething ring and he bit you, and your scream was so hilarious that I couldn’t help but laugh until I cried.” As if he knew he was being talked about, Brady chose right then to start gnawing on his mom’s arm again, and she shook him off, giving a small scream when she did, which made Sully snort in laughter. “Damn, kind of like that. Kid just likes chewing on you when you’re talking to me.”

“Clearly he does. That’s a habit I need to break him of. But enough of this distraction, because I have something very important to ask you.” Separating her arm from her son’s mouth, and having him whimper because of it, Maribelle looked Sully dead in the eyes and asked: “Why would you get upset from me making fun of your lack of love, if it has never seemed like a problem before this week?”

The answer, which Sully did not seem eager in the slightest to give, was put on hold when a few people came walking into the room, halting the conversation. “Hey, figured I should come say goodbye before I got out of here,” Robin said, waving at Sully while smiling at Maribelle. “Got to take the Plegians out to the airport so they can finally get off to where they’ve been meaning to be. It’s about time, really. Just wish I didn’t have to go alone.”

“Oh, Robin, why would you say such a thing?” the sultry voice of Tharja chimed in, which brought narrowed eyes to one of the women and a confused look from the other. “You and I both know that you have waited for this moment for our whole lives, and if we can just ditch Henry somewhere then everything will be perfect.”

Robin cleared his throat and turned around to look at the dark-haired woman behind him. “No, Tharja, we aren’t ditching Henry anywhere alone. Wherever he goes, you’re going with him. While I can’t say I’ve enjoyed your fanatical obsession with me, I can say that I will miss the unnerving feeling of you always around watching me.”

“I love when you talk negatively towards me. It makes my lower parts quiver and tremble.” Tharja winked at him, before peeking around where he stood to see the ladies on the couch. “You two as my witnesses, let it be known that Robin’s constant denial of his true love for me turns me on more than anything else in this world could.”

He groaned and she laughed, and once they were both out of the room (after Robin told Sully that he would explain everything to her the next time they saw each other at work), Maribelle gave a small shake of her head. “This week has been almost as strange here as it must have been for you up in the mountains. Those Plegian visitors, plus the multiple times we were trapped within places…it’s been an adventure here.”

“I think we’re going to be discussing a lot of things. You guys got snowed in too?” That was news to Sully, and just asking about it brought up a whole new realm of conversation that they went into, the previous question being tossed aside for the time being. It never really left either of their minds, though, not when there were voices and conversations happening outside where they were that would occasionally be overheard. Accusations could be heard flying, mostly in regards to what had happened up at the cabin, and every single time she heard Chrom begin to accuse her of making Vaike be unfaithful to his girlfriend, Sully would feel like shrinking back a bit. She hadn’t done anything of the sort, and Vaike definitely had remained true to his girlfriend until the very end, something that she hoped would become clear as the situation was explained to everyone.

But the person who needed that reassurance most was the one who came into the room and initially made a beeline for the Christmas tree in the corner, picking up the sole present from underneath it. “She didn’t even bother openin’ it, just like she told me,” Vaike said, picking at the wrapping paper on the box as he approached the two ladies on the couch. “Didn’t wanna think that she really did find someone better, but guess she did.”

“I wouldn’t consider him better,” Maribelle added, hoping that what she could say would help the situation a bit. “He’s just foreign and an old friend of Olivia’s that seems like a real charming fellow. Lissa must have just wanted to try something new.”

“Huh, that’s funny, ‘cause she said that a l’il birdy named Maribelle was totally approvin’ of what she was doin’, not once tellin’ her to stop once she started.” Vaike gave a sniffle, collapsing on the couch so close to Sully that he was virtually on her lap. “But then again, the Vaike ain’t dumb and he knows that same l’il birdy was tellin’ Sully everythin’ she could about the situation, for some reason.”

“How do you figure that?” the two ladies asked simultaneously, looking between each other.

“Easy. Frederick ain’t a liar when it comes to tellin’ pals what’s up. He says his wife’s been takin’ part in sketch behaviors? Clearly she’s been pullin’ strings in regards to Lissa cheatin’ on her boyfriend and gettin' with the new guy.”

Sully raised an eyebrow as she was still looking at Maribelle. “Oh, I wasn’t aware of that part of things. Thought you were just commenting on what you saw and trying to get me to take action because of it.”

“I, er, didn’t tell her to get with him. I was not even here when she made her move on him, so you can’t place any blame on me for it.” Maribelle gave a sheepish smile. “However, I will take all the credit for trying to give you a new person to get with, Vaike, even if the person didn’t take any action whatsoever.”

“Why’d you be tryin’ to get me with someone else when…” The question faded into thin air as he looked between the two ladies, the realization of what was happening hitting him quickly. “I get it now. Guess that explains a lot of those phone calls, doesn’t it? Didn’t know that we were tryin’ to get me with the person I was sharin’ a bed with.”

Maribelle gasped. “You two shared a bed while up at the cabin? How scandalous! I mean, I cannot place any judgment against you both, but that’s still a mighty big revelation!”

“We did it to not freeze in the middle of the night. There was nothing else to it.” Sully frowned, turning her head to look at Vaike, who immediately changed where he was looking. “Oh come on, Vaike, you know that’s all that was about. I didn’t like you as more than a friend when we went up there and I still don’t like you now.”

“I know, you ain’t the kind of lady to do that sort ‘a stuff to someone. Just kinda wish someone woulda warned me that she was movin’ on while I was gone. Woulda made this a bit easier.” He tore through the wrapping paper on the box and cast it aside, opening the box once he could. “Wish she hadn’t done this. This ring would look gorgeous on her hand.”

“Why don’t you save it for when you find someone new to love?” Nudging Sully a bit, Maribelle looked at Vaike with a slightly suggestive look. “I’m sure you can find someone who would wear that ring better than Lissa ever could.”

“I don’t know if anyone’ll be able to wear this thing, honestly. She’s got tiny fingers and all that.” Missing the point entirely, Vaike kept looking down at the ring in the box. “Really wish this all woulda gone accordin’ to plan. Was that too much t’ask?”

The sassy response that Maribelle was going to give caught in her throat, her realizing that saying it wasn’t going to help the situation at all, and she gave in to simply sigh and nod. “It must have been, yes. Lissa didn’t mean harm when she fell for Lon’qu, I’m sure, but she did nothing but harm you with that decision. Surely you will find it within you to forgive her, and to forgive everyone who knew about this but didn’t warn you.”

“I’ve already done my forgivin’,” he quietly said, reaching over Sully to push the box towards Maribelle, “and I think I want you to take this off my hands.”

Her eyes went wide and she glanced from the box to Vaike’s serious face and back to the box. “I could never take such an important thing from you! All I did was get involved in a situation that I must have made much worse than it already was, so you keep that for yourself and wait until you have someone else to give it to.”

“I don’t wanna keep it, though, not for as long as it’s gonna take to find someone else to take it from me. ‘sides, if what everyone told the Vaike is correct, sounds like you’d find more use from it than me anyway. Chances are you’ll have yourself a kid who can appreciate it ‘fore I get around to find a woman who can.” He pushed the box at her again. “Now take it, Maribelle. It’s the least I can do after ya got involved in lettin’ Lissa find what made her happier than me.”

After hesitating for a second, Maribelle grabbed the box and nodded. “You’re right. Thank you for being so understanding, Vaike. Although I’m sure I’ll be giving this back to you when you realize you need it to tell someone else you love her.” At that, she stood up, taking with her both her child and the ring box, turning to give the two still seated a farewell wave. “I should stop holding up Frederick and get on out of here,” she said, smiling. “We will all have to meet together soon and discuss things more. Not at a family dinner, mind you, but somewhere else.” Her smile got a bit bigger. “I sense that this will be the beginning of a strong relationship between the three of us!”

The two on the couch laughed and soon she was gone, leaving them sitting there together in the quiet room. The moving around outside had long since ceased, and it seemed like almost everyone there had left or gone to do things on their own. “So, uh, gotta ask you somethin’, Sully,” Vaike started, before seeing that she had turned to give him a concerned look. “Okay, maybe not. What’s the look for?”

“You gave the ring to Maribelle.” It was said softly, whether Sully intended it to be that way or not, and once she realized she’d said it her face was lighting up. “Not like I care. It was gaudy and nothing that I’d even begin to care about.”

“Sounds like someone’s a bit jealous. What was that about you sayin’ you still didn’t like me as more than a friend?” He watched her begin to blush harder, telling him to shut up under her breath. “Oh, c’mon, you’ve gotta admit to it now. You and Maribelle were talkin’ about me every time she called you, and now that I’m, well, back on the market…”

“I’m not dating you, Vaike. Not now, not ever.”

He scooted a bit more onto her lap and wrapped his arm around her. “Yeah, I hear ya. Not the datin’ type or somethin’? Somethin’ tells me you’ll be changin’ your mind about that eventually, and I’d like to let’cha know that when you do, I’ll be here for ya.”

There wasn’t anything she could do with him on top of her, so she sighed and accepted that he was going to be affectionate towards her, regardless of if she wanted it or not. After the week he’d had, pushing affection towards someone who had moved past wanting it, maybe it was for the best that he got to cope through showering someone new with that wasted affection. So she let him cuddle her, and by the time they were kicked out for not having any reason for being there anymore, she might not have felt it was being wasted on her after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end! I'm sure that some of you are disappointed in the ending, but I've written it this way so what happens next can kind of...be decided by how you think it would go. I hate forcing endgame relationships on people in my stories, but if you wanted there to be one, you could totally headcanon that.
> 
> I began writing this as a Christmas present to some of my friends on this site who are into FE:A, and along the way it turned into less of a group present and more of a present for just a few people. I didn't intend for it to be that way, but that's how life shakes out sometimes. So if you're one of those people who know this fic was written for you, I really hope it was worth the three weeks of hectic posting. It sure was worth the almost two months of rapid-fire writing. To say I started posting this on Sully's birthday (not originally intended) and then ended it on Vaike's birthday (completely intended) is amazing to me.
> 
> But, in the end, I hope everyone who's read this fic enjoyed it!


End file.
